Bellerin – We were unlucky

Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin believes his side were ‘unlucky’ in their 1-0 loss against Chelsea on Sunday afternoon.

The Gunners fell to Guus Hiddink’s side after a first half strike from Diego Costa settled the score at the Emirates Stadium.

The loss, however not harrowing to the Gunners’ title chances this campaign, means that Arsenal have taken just two points from their previous three games and now sit third in the Premier League table, behind rivals Leicester and Manchester City.

Speaking on the defeat, as reported by the club’s official website, 20-year-old Bellerin admitted that once Per Mertesacker had been given the red card, it became somewhat of an ‘uphill battle’ for the north London side to turnover.

It is a difficult one as a player and it is a bit hard for us. It was far from goal but if the referee makes that decision he has to be right. There is no excuse and [it is difficult] with 10 men but we tried our best.

[Even though we were] playing with 10 men we thought in the second half that we wouldn’t give up, and we had some chances to get a better score. It couldn’t be done and it was a bit unlucky on our part. We need to keep our heads up and move onto the next game.

However, the former La Masia graduate claimed that the loss to Chelsea is nothing that cannot be overturned by a number of good results in the coming weeks.

We can’t just be thinking about the result [against Chelsea]. We need to focus on the next game and it does not matter about the trend, we are not thinking about that. We are just thinking about winning and getting ahead.

We always think of it [the title]. We take it game by game and when it comes to May we will see where we are.

The Gunners face the likes of Southampton, Bournemouth, Leicester and Manchester United during February – with two of those fixtures at home.