MIKEL ARTETA issued an angry apology to Arsenal fans after chucking in the title towel.
A 3-0 home defeat by Brighton means Manchester City will be crowned Champions if the Gunners lose their next game at Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Gutted Arteta said: “I hate the feeling of letting people down when they are expecting something. That’s the biggest regret and I have to apologise for that.
“Second position is secure and that is not going to change but this result is going to take me a few days to digest.
“My job is to get the best out of every single player and obviously today I didn’t do that, so it’s my responsibility.
“What the team has done over the last ten months is very different to what anybody expected and we have to manage how we deal with those expectations.
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“We fought really hard to be in this position but when you are in a critical moment like this, you cannot do what we did in the second-half.
“Now we have to look at if this team is capable of doing it when it comes to the biggest stage.
“With the level that is required to fight for the Premier League title and to compete in the Champions League, there’s a lot of things to think about and analyse because a performance like this cannot happen.
“Last Sunday we were so proud of the way we won at Newcastle and today is the complete opposite.
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“There were a lot of interruptions today. There were 30 fouls and the game had no flow. But we didn’t capitalise on our big moments, we lost a lot of duels and conceded some really poor goals.
“And after Brighton’s second goal, we had no answers. That’s the reality.”
Even if Arsenal win their two remaining games, City will still win the League if they win at home to Chelsea next Sunday.
And skipper Martin Odegaard admitted: “It feels like there’s no hope. I don ‘t think City are going to make too many mistakes now.
“We have to be honest, it’s going to be very difficult now. It’s a big disappointment and tough to take.
“We’ve done a lot of good things this season but this is not how we wanted it to end.
“At the moment I don’t have any answers but we have to accept it, learn from it and make sure we keep improving.”
Goals from Julio Enciso, Deniz Undav and Pervis Estupinian were enough to take Brighton up to sixth place and boss Roberto de Zerbi said: “I am very delighted with the performance. We deserved to win and I am really happy and proud of these players.
“Now we have 58 points but that is not yet enough to qualify for Europe. We have four more tough games to play but we deserve to play in Europe next season.
“We want to become a bigger team than we are now and the most important part of the mentality so now we have to forget all about this result otherwise we will 100 percent lose our next game against Newcastle.”
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Goalscorer Undav revealed that De Zerbi had shown his players a video of Michael Jordan to motivate them ahead of this game.
But De Zerbi laughed: “Undav speaks too much. I don’t like basketball but I love the mentality of the big champions in every sport.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
