Arsenal's Defeat to Betis Sparks Fury in Dressing Room
Mikel Arteta walked off the Aviva Stadium pitch with a 3-1 defeat on the scoreboard and a furious dressing room behind him. He sounded almost pleased about at least one of those things.
“They are fuming, but this is good. That's what we need,” he said afterwards. The performance that sparked that rage was anything but.
Sloppy start, ruthless punishment
Arsenal named the same starting XI that had swept past Girona 4-1 on Friday. Kai Havertz again led the line, Viktor Gyökeres and Christos Tzolis flanked him, and there was a familiar rhythm to the Gunners’ early possession.
Then came the collapse.
On nine minutes, Kepa Arrizabalaga misjudged a corner and never made contact. The ball dropped to Rodrigo Riquelme at the back post and he hammered it in. One set piece, one mistake, one goal down.
Arsenal should have been gifted a route back almost immediately. Betis goalkeeper Álvaro Valles passed the ball straight to Tzolis, only for the new signing to squander the opening. It proved costly within minutes.
Nelson Deossa picked up the ball 30 yards out and unleashed a vicious strike that flew into the top corner. No deflection. No chance for Kepa. Just a 2-0 deficit born from hesitation at one end and conviction at the other.
Hincapié strikes, Fornals answers
Arsenal finally forced their way into the contest from a set piece of their own. Another corner from Tzolis, another misjudgement from Valles, and this time Piero Hincapié reacted quickest, rising to head in and cut the gap to 2-1.
For a spell, the Gunners looked like themselves again. Sharp combinations, pressure high up the pitch, Betis pushed back.
Then the self-destruction returned.
Havertz, dropping deep to link play, gave the ball away cheaply. Betis broke with purpose, and Pablo Fornals, once of West Ham, arrived to sweep the finish beyond a rooted Kepa. Arsenal went in at the break 3-1 down, undone by their own carelessness.
Inside the dressing room, Arteta did not sugar-coat it.
“Very upset, given a hard time,” he admitted. Standards, especially “in and around our box,” had fallen short of what he demands.
Changes drain the contest
Arteta had promised minutes, and he delivered them. He used 25 players across the night, ripping up his starting XI at halftime and turning the second period into a rolling audition.
One of those changes brought a notable return. Gabriel stepped onto the pitch for his first appearance since Brazil’s World Cup round-of-16 defeat to Norway, a small but significant milestone in his recovery and reintegration.
The game itself, though, drifted.
With so many substitutions, any rhythm vanished. The intensity of the first half, the chaos around both penalty areas, gave way to a slower, flatter contest. Neither side carved out a clear-cut chance of note. The damage had already been done.
Fire in the belly, questions at the back
Arteta did not hide his frustration with the result, even in a preseason context.
“The important part is to win it and we didn't manage to win it, so disappointed obviously for the result,” he said, before pointing to the wider picture of a heavily rotated squad and some “fantastic moments” in possession.
He kept circling back to the same theme: how Arsenal competed in their own box, how they handled basic defensive situations, how far that fell from the “standards that we are used to.”
A bad night in Dublin, then. But one their manager clearly intends to use.
A 3-1 defeat to Real Betis in a friendly will not define Arsenal’s season. The reaction to it just might.
