Paul Merson has admitted he was shocked at Mikel Arteta's reaction to Arsenal's 2-2 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
On Wednesday night, Arsenal suffered a major setback in their hopes of winning the Premier League title as they dropped points to bottom of the table side Wolves.
The Premier League leaders appeared to be on their way to a routine win win a goal from star player Bukayo Saka in opening five minutes before Piero Hincapie doubled the visitors tally in the second half.
However, the home side fought back later in the match, with Hugo Bueno and an own goal from Riccardo Calafiori securing a 2-2 draw for Wolves, picking up only their tenth point of the season.
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As always, Arsenal boss Arteta spoke with the media to assess his side's performance post-match, and his comments left Sky Sports pundit Merson blown away.
In his post-match interview, Arteta admitted that Arsenal didn't deserve to win the match against Wolves, criticising how his side performed throughout the game.
“Really tough to accept it, but the second half we didn’t perform at the level in any aspect of the game — the standards that are required to win a game in the Premier League — and we paid the price," Arteta admitted.
"There were too many things that went wrong, it was one after the other basically. We never got any dominance or control of the game."
The brutally honest interview contradicts Arteta's typical positive outlook, something that Merson picked up on, admitting that it was concerning that the Spaniard was potentially starting to show cracks in his confidence.
"I wouldn’t want to be in Arsenal’s shoes if it [miss out on the title] happens again," Merson said in the Sky Sports studio.
"I was quite shocked by Mikel Arteta’s post-match interview then. It’s the first time, really, that I’ve seen him not majorly positive.
"Usually, he comes out, “We’ve done this, we’ve done that”, and he’ll be saying, “Oh, we deserved it here, they deserved it here”.
"Instead of coming out saying, “We’re five points clear, as long as we don’t get beaten by Manchester City, we win the league”, but it wasn’t like that, though."
Merson continued: "I was a bit worried with that interview. You can only do so much to the team and when you’re watching that, there’s something missing. I can’t put my finger on it but there’s something missing.
"Something is missing and I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes if they don’t win the league this year."
The former Arsenal midfielder went on to highlight the importance of Arsenal's next two matches against London rivals Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, while title-rivals Manchester City face Newcastle United and Leeds United.
He claimed that it was 'now or never' for the Gunners and that he was now 'half-scared' for their title hopes.
Topics: Arsenal, Mikel Arteta, Paul Merson, Premier League, Football, Sky Sports
Ben McCrum