Hector Bellerín spoke after the win over Bournemouth about how important it was to get back on track following the performance and deserved criticism after the Liverpool match at Anfield.
Hector was speaking to the Arsenal website, and said that the team knew it was down to them to put things right. Overall he seemed pleased with the performance on Saturday, saying: “It was up to us to come up with the right attitude and the right plan, and everyone performed at their best level.
“Everyone gave their 100 per cent and that’s shown in the whole game and in the result. We’re happy that we got a clean sheet, that is really important for us because we conceded a few goals in the last game so it was important for us to keep solid at the back.”
The Spanish right-back was also asked about whether the Liverpool criticism hurt the side, but he was quick to point out that they brought it all on themselves: “I think it was fully deserved. We didn’t give 100 per cent in that game and we didn’t play as Arsenal should play.
“We need to take it on the chin and we know we had to improve, so after this game I think we showed everyone that we have reacted. We knew what we did was wrong and we need to make amends for it. I think we showed that on the pitch, and it was a good comeback from that.”
Arsenal were certainly a lot more impressive, both offensively and defensively, and in the end that was evident in the final result. Whilst the Liverpool result reflected the performances of the two teams on the day, the Gunners were unfortunate not to get more against Stoke.
But after four games (including the Community Shield) without a clean sheet, the defence clearly needed the biggest improvement.
Hector was part of this, especially after his mistake trying to control the ball for Liverpool’s third goal at Anfield, and it was good to see he’d learned from that mistake, simply kicking it out when in a similar situation against Bournemouth.
Although no-one was happy with what happened on Merseyside, once the game is done you can only ask the players to look at themselves and improve for the next one.
So from that point of view, Saturday’s win at the Emirates was a satisfactory one.