Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta felt his team “lacked consistency and domination” despite cruising to a 3-0 victory over Bodo/Glimt to move top of their Europa League group.
Eddie Nketiah and Rob Holding struck in the first half before Fabio Vieira added a late finish to end a run of three consecutive home games in European competition without victory for Arsenal.
The Gunners are now two points clear of second-placed PSV at the top of Group A, while also leading the Premier League after a brilliant start which has seen them win nine out of their first 10 games in all competitions for just the third time in club history.
However, Arteta had mixed feelings over his team’s performance against Bodo, telling BT Sport: “I’m really happy with the win, six points and a clean sheet.
“But we lacked connection between the players, we lacked consistency and domination through the game.
“There were eight changes and a lot of players that haven’t played a lot of minutes, and you could feel that, the timing was missing.
“In the final third we looked very dangerous, the goals we scored were good goals.”
12 – Eddie Nketiah has scored 12 goals across his last 15 starts for Arsenal in all competitions, netting in each of his last four starts for the Gunners in the UEFA Europa League (4 goals). Clinical. pic.twitter.com/IYEcHbh5VG
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 6, 2022
Bodo started the second half brightly and Arteta reacted by making a number of substitutions, bringing on the likes of Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus, the latter of whom provided a brilliant assist for Vieira.
Arteta explained the alterations were necessary due to some of the starters’ fitness, saying: “A few players, you could see they had a different intensity, not enough exposure in terms of minutes, so we had to make changes.”
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