Former Aston Villa striker Gabby Agbonlahor has ripped into Mikel Arteta following Arsenal's Champions League exit.
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Gunners lost in last-fourArteta claimed Arsenal were the better teamAgbonlahor slams SpaniardFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?
Arsenal fell to a 3-1 aggregate defeat to PSG over two legs, with the French club winning 2-1 at Parc des Princes on Wednesday. The defeat marks another season without a major trophy for the Gunners and Agbonlahor believes Arteta's post-match comments, particularly his assertion that Arsenal were the better team, were misguided and disrespectful.
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Arsenal have struggled domestically this season, too. While they sit second in the Premier League table, they have already seen Liverpool crowned champions, and face a significant fight to hold on to their runners-up spot; they are three points clear of Manchester City and four clear of Newcastle with three games to go. Agbonlahor, as a result, believes Arteta's claims are simply false, insisting that PSG were by far the better team over two legs.
WHAT AGBONLAHOR SAID
On talkSPORT, Agbonlahor said: "They tried, in the first 15 minutes they were the better team. They should have scored two or three goals, it just shows you what a top goalkeeper can do in this competition. But after that, I felt Arsenal faded, Odegaard had a better game, Martinelli, but they faded second half. For the manager to say the best team lost is ridiculous and this is the reason that other fanbases don't want Arsenal to win anything."
He added: "I think Arteta's got to be careful with the way he's speaking sometimes. He's talking about the last two seasons, 'we've got this amount of points and that amount of points we got would have been enough to win the league this year, Arsenal are the best team in Europe…' Sometimes just be humble in defeat. The better team won over two legs, by far the better team for me. PSG are the best team in the competition, there's no shame in saying 'we fell short, we'll come again next season'."
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Arsenal play Liverpool this weekend at Anfield. They are likely to give the Reds a guard of honour.