Mikel Arteta is concerned about Gabriel Martinelli after the forward was taken off against Everton with a hamstring problem.

Gabriel Martinelli was handed a second start in a row after quite some time and his hamstring seems to have had a bit of an issue with that.

The 20-year-old was replaced by Eddie Nketiah after 71 minutes.

Asked if Martinelli was ok, Arteta said, “I don’t know.

“We have to assess him but he felt something in his hamstring, I’m not very positive about it.”

As for why Nketiah, who refused a new Arsenal contract just last week, was picked ahead of Nicolas Pepe, Arteta replied, “I decided to play Eddie today, to bring him on and he created three chances and hit the post once in 25 minutes.

“He does every day in training what you saw in 25 minutes here. Every single day. That’s why I picked him.”

So, obviously nothing to do with trying to get him to sign a new deal so we don’t lose him on a free. Got it!

In another interview, Arteta spoke about his disappointment at the result. “I’m very disappointed,” Arteta told Arsenal Media.

“I think in the first half we were inconsistent with the ball and we had some moments of control, we didn’t concede anything apart from the goal that was disallowed by the set-piece, but we didn’t have enough penetration or threat on the opponents’ goal.

“One of the few times we did it we scored a goal from Martin and then in the second half we had to grab the game and we tried to do that, but again, in moments we were sloppy.

“We created four big, big chances, with Eddie, two with Martin and then one with Auba at the end, and when you don’t put them in the net away from home it’s very complicated to win the game, especially if you concede in the way that we did for example with the first goal.
“We gave too many balls away too easily and encouraged them against the movement that they had in the press. The few times that we did break the press we were open on goal, but we have to do it much more consistently.”