Featured Image Credit: Sky Sports Premier League/Twitter
Topics: Arsenal, Mikel Arteta, Premier League
Jack Kenmare
Topics: Arsenal, Mikel Arteta, Premier League
An emotional Mikel Arteta was "extremely sad" in his post-match interview after Manchester City were crowned Premier League champions following Arsenal's loss to Nottingham Forest.
After such a positive run for large parts of the season, Arteta's side have fallen away in the final weeks of this season's hotly-contested title race.
Three consecutive draws against Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton in April hindered their progress, as did a 4-1 defeat to Manchester City, before last week's capitulation against Brighton all but ended their hopes.
Then, on Saturday afternoon, Nottingham Forest secured their Premier League safety with a hard-fought 1-0 win over the Gunners – a result that confirmed City's fifth league title in six years.
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After the full-time whistle, a distraught Mikel Arteta reacted after a disappointing defeat at the City Ground.
"It is a really sad day, a lot of difficult emotions, we lost the game, we lost the championship after 10 and a half months fighting for it and nine and a half months almost on top of it," he said.
"We built a lot of illusion and belief that we could go all the way and win it and in the end we fell short. Congratulations to Man City, they are the champions, they deserve to be the champions, they have done it for 38 games, we haven't been able to do that.
"That is it and from my side I apologise because we have built that belief that we could do it and in the end the team wasn't able to do it and that is my responsibility.
"Today is just a lot of sadness. You see a lot of people, they put everything, they put so much work, so much belief and so much hours and I am sad, I am sad for them because we wanted to find a way and squeeze everything we had in that group."
Arteta added: "We fell short and this is my job and my responsibility, I have to analyse that and think.
"Today we should have played much better, we gave them a goal and gave them another chance to score another goal if they wanted and we fell short to break them down.
"You need, when you come to April and May, 24 players there and available, fit and playing at their best, full of confidence and ready to go and for many reasons we haven't had that.
"There are key moments in the league that define, the momentum goes there, the result goes there and we didn't have those margins going on our side."
Here's how social media reacted to Arteta's interview.
One said: "I feel really sad for him," while another commented: "Arteta is such a likeable manager. Banter aside, i’m kind of gutted for him. But second to this Man City team is no mean feat."
A third added: "He looked defeated even before the match started. It's a mentality thing and they just don't have the mentality or culture at that club. Shame because they played some good football this season."
Thoughts on Arsenal's season? What went wrong exactly?
Let us know in the comments.