Arsenal midfielder Mikel Arteta has admitted that the gunners were nowhere near enough the best after losing 2-0 to Borussia Dortmund in the opening Champions League group match. Arsenal reached the group stages after overcoming Besiktas in the qualifiers, but it was a result achieved only through a solitary goal from Alexis Sanchez. The Premier League outfit were convincingly outplayed on several occasions. The struggles faced by Arsene Wenger’s men at the start of the season were fully exploited by Dortmund, who never allowed a moment on the ball for the Arsenal players.
Arsenal came into the match after having drawn the last three league matches. Their latest failure to get a result came in the 2-2 draw with Manchester City. Arsenal managed to take some of the few chances they created in the game against City, but this was not the case at the Signal Iduna Park. Arteta recently returned from injury that he sustained during the Besiktas match. The former Everton men picked up a yellow card after failing to contain the threat of Dortmund throughout the match. Opposition number 10 Mkhitaryan was especially a major thorn against Arsenal despite failing to score.
Arteta could not offer much defence for Arsenal’s performance and he can only hope that it improves in the league match against Aston Villa on Saturday. “We faced a top side, one of the most difficult stadiums in Europe. We knew that from the start, they put us under pressure, it was very sloppy from us to concede the goal with 20 seconds to go in the first half. After you go 1-0 down here it’s very difficult, they’re very good on the break. We didn’t perform well enough tonight. We couldn’t cope with them,” said Arteta. Danny Welbeck failed to score in his second match for his new club.