Mikel Arteta admitted that Arsenal weren’t ruthless enough to beat a physical Brentford team as they missed the chance to restore their six-point lead over Manchester City.
Noni Madueke’s header broke the deadlock in west London in the second half but Keane Lewis-Potter equalised 10 minutes later from a long throw by Michael Kayode to set up a grandstand finale that saw both sides spurn chances to win it.
Arsenal, who badly missed William Saliba and Kai Havertz after they were ruled out with illness and injury respectively, now have a four-point lead over City with 12 games to play and Arteta acknowledged that they had failed to cope with Brentford’s threat from set-pieces.
“If you want to win here, you’re going to have to be really ruthless in both boxes and today we lacked that,” said Arteta. “They are exceptional at what they do. The chaos that is in and around that ball is very, very difficult to defend.”
Asked whether he was concerned that City have started to cut the gap, he added: “We are going to be preparing to win every single match and the only thing that we can do is focus on that and raise the levels collectively. That’s going to carry on like this until May, regardless if we play before [City] or after them. It’s just the things that we have to do.”
Eberechi Eze was substituted at half-time on his first Premier League start for two months and Arteta believes the England forward is still adapting after signing from Crystal Palace in the summer.
“It’s not easy when you move to a new club,” he said. “It’s always like this. When you play against a team that is like this and the ball is a lot of times not on the floor and you have to be constantly breaking the play, especially for attacking and creative players, it’s more difficult.”
The Brentford manager, Keith Andrews, felt that Arsenal’s Gabriel Magalhães should have been shown a second yellow card for a foul on Dango Ouattara but was delighted with his side as they strengthened their grip on seventh place.
“It was a performance filled with grit, personality, character and bravery,” he said. “We had to try and cause a bit of chaos and that’s what we did with our set-pieces and general play. I just love watching us play.”
