After Arsenal suffered their second consecutive defeat on Saturday since the resumption of English Premier League early this week, manager Mikel Arteta admitted that it was their fault and said that the team did not perform as expected.

“Obviously after a defeat, you want to put the next result straight away to winning. I think we did a lot of things today to win the game comfortably, but we haven’t competed like you have to compete in the Premier League. We gave the first goal away and we lost a few important duels afterward, so I think it’s all our fault,” the official website of Arsenal quoted Arteta as saying.

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The Gunners were handed an embarrassing 1-2 defeat by relegation-threatened Brighton at the empty Falmer Stadium. After taking a lead through Nicolas Pepe’s strike in the 68th minute, Arsenal conceded two goals to further shrink their chance to finish in top four. They had lost to Manchester City 3-0 on the resumption day of the season.

“Not about characters, it’s about how you compete in a Premier League match and it’s for 100 minutes in this case. It’s for every ball, it’s for every action and the moment you lose attention, the opponent is going to punish you. It’s not the first time it has happened and if you want to win football games consistently at this level, it’s a must and it’s non-negotiable,” Arteta said.

“The context of the last game against Man City and this one is completely different. I am much more upset today because I know the accident that happened against City but the accident today was provoked by us and it’s unacceptable,” he added.

Other than two consecutive defeats, Arsenal have also suffered a flurry of injuries in the last two matches. Against Manchester City, they were hit with two injuries in the first 20 minutes and one of them saw Xhaka being stretchered off.

On Saturday, possibly the best Arsenal player at the moment, goalkeeper Bernd Leno was also taken off the ground on a stretcher after his collision with Neil Maupay. It was Muapay who had eventually scored the winner for Brighton.

The game, meanwhile, did not end on happy terms and players from both the teams engaged in heated banters and scuffles after the final whistle as Arsenal players alleged that Maupay deliberately injured Leno. The Brighton player extended it to the post-match presentation ceremony where he said that Arsenal “deserved” the defeat.

“I don’t know, I haven’t see the action. I’ve seen a lot of players getting together but I don’t know what happened. It’s the frustration because we’ve thrown the game away and that’s a reaction that can happen but I always believe that a player has no intention to get someone else injured.”

“He (Maupay) can say whatever he wants, I know my players and one aspect that they don’t miss for sure is humility,” Arteta explained.