Danny Murphy responds to Viktor Gyokeres excuse and reveals huge Arsenal mistake

Danny Murphy accused Arsenal of failing to display an ability to think on their feet during Saturday’s damaging Premier League defeat against Bournemouth.

The Gunners suffered a third defeat in four games in all competitions and have seen their status as champions-elect diminished.

Bournemouth fully merited their second successive win at Emirates Stadium having controlled much of the game and capitalised on a catalogue of errors made by Mikel Arteta’s jittery side.

The Cherries did survive a late flurry of chances spurned by Viktor Gyokeres, after which the Sweden international striker blamed his team’s lack of fluency on a dry pitch.

That excuse has attracted widespread criticism and although Match of the Day pundit Murphy declined the opportunity to add his name to the growing chorus of derision he argued, were the playing conditions an issue, Arsenal should have been capable of showing enough nous to adapt.

He said: ‘Funnily enough, even it the pitch was dry I don’t think they played enough long balls.

‘Bournemouth pressed them high and went man for man at the back. You’ve got Martinelli and Madueke who started the game I didn’t see them hit any long balls, play some percentages and try and spin them around.

‘So if the pitch is dry, you’ve got international players make some different decisions.’

Arteta, meanwhile, described this latest setback which blows the Premier League title door wide open to Manchester City, as a ‘big punch in the face’.

Arsenal’s sobering loss – their third in a row domestically – inside a nerve-fuelled Emirates Stadium provides City with the chance to reduce the Gunners’ nine-point lead to six when they face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

‘It’s a big punch in the face, and extremely disappointing,’ said Arteta. “That’s what I said to the boys.

‘There are no grey areas. Today there were some very basic things that we did extremely badly. When you do that, they’re going to capitalise, and it becomes very chaotic and very difficult to control.

‘We have to look at ourselves. We have to suffer. It’s painful. It’s a terrible feeling. But tomorrow is a different day. And if somebody would have said to me in August, we are in this position right now in April, I’m sure we would all have taken it.’

Arsenal have finished runners-up for the past three seasons, and their latest defeat not only hands the championship momentum to City, but again raises serious questions about their title-winning mentality.

The two rivals meet at the Etihad Stadium next Sunday, and should Pep Guardiola’s side triumph in that match, see off Chelsea on Sunday, and also beat Burnley on April 22 they would be level on points with the Gunners with five games remaining.

But Arteta, who was without Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber, Martin Odegaard and Riccardo Calafiori through injury on Saturday, said: ‘We can’t control that. What we can control is our performances over the last nine months.

‘Anything that is said when you have a defeat at home, you have to accept that. There are no excuses. It’s about how we’re going to stand up, first of all, individually, and then as a team to change that immediately on Wednesday (against Sporting in the second leg).

‘So, we need everything. We need everybody fit and available. The ones that were not involved today are really big, important players, and we need them immediately with us because then we’re going to be much stronger.

‘And then the other ones, they need to stand up. Me, being the first one, and embrace this challenge and go for it.’