Mikel Arteta says he’ll need to speak to Matteo Guendouzi over his actions after the match against Brighton on Saturday.

Mikel Arteta admits Arsenal need to express their frustrations the right way, and he’ll need to speak to Matteo Guendouzi over the aftermath of the match against Brighton at the weekend.

Guendouzi faced an FA charge and potential ban after grabbing Neal Maupay by the throat following the game. Martin Atkinson took no action at the time, and fortunately it seems neither will the FA. However, the midfielder took a big risk.

When asked about the incident, Arteta said he didn’t see it, but he’d need to speak to Guendouzi if the claims were correct.

“When we show frustration we have to show it in the right way,” Arteta said. “I haven’t seen the images [of Guendouzi] or what happened, but we will talk about it if that is the case. Emotionally, we have to control the situations much better.”

It was definitely a needless risk from the midfielder, at best. The game was over, so there was nothing to be gained by squaring up to Maupay and intimidating him.

Arsenal are already missing Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka to injury, they didn’t need to lose Guendouzi as well. At the time of writing, we don’t even have confirmation that Dani Ceballos will remain at the club past the end of this week.

That leaves Joe Willock, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Mesut Özil. Bukayo Saka too if he remains in midfield. There’s hardly an experienced Premier League trio in there.