Arsene Wenger said his sides finishing was the missing link as Arsenal dropped points in the title race.
Leicester, Man City and Tottenham all won but the Gunners could only manage a point at home to Southampton on a frustrating night at the Emirates.
Wenger said he couldn’t fault his players’ commitment but, as reported by Sky Sports, conceded that it was the finishing that let them down.
We put the energy level in.
Our expected chances we created was good but our finishing was poor and at the end of the day we paid for that. We dropped two points today.
We cannot fault our focus, desire and our energy levels, but when you create the quality of chances we created tonight, you want to win the game and that’s what we couldn’t do. The only thing you could say is that their ‘keeper had a great performance.
The goalless draw made it the third consecutive games Arsenal have failed to score in and the fourth game without a win in the league.
That winless run dates back to 2nd January, exactly a month on from the 1-0 win over Newcastle.
It is a concerning, rather alarming, statistic, but Wenger didn’t put the inability to score down to confidence.
No. It was just bad finishing. It’s a bit cyclic the finishing but I believe we had the chances and at the moment we have played three games without scoring a goal, but, you go through patches like that.
We have to, of course, keep the belief and the solidarity and not drop our confidence.
Tottenham’s 3-0 win takes them above Arsenal and the draw leaves the north Londoner’s five points adrift of leaders Leicester, who face Manchester City at the weekend.
City were winners in Sunderland, and Wenger added his team need to concentrate on themselves and not those around them.
Yes of course we dropped points in the race but we have to focus on winning games and not what opponents do.
We had the chances today. When you’re a football player you come out of a game [and ask] should you have won that, yes of course, so lets look at ourself, and not too much at the opponent.
