Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta could not hide his disappointment after his side were dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Southampton on Saturday, suggesting the team\u2019s poor defending was the major contributing factor.<\/p>\n
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The 2-1 quarter-final defeat follows on from the League Cup final loss to Manchester City last time out as Arsenal\u2019s \u2018quadruple\u2019 hopes this season have suddenly been downgraded to a \u2018double\u2019 as they now chase Premier League and Champions League honours.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe result and especially the way we conceded the two goals (were disappointing),\u201d Arteta told the BBC<\/em>. \u201cWe had so much dominance in and around the box. We conceded the first goal in a very unusual way for us, the second one from direct play as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe had two massive chances and needed to capitalise on that. If you make the defending errors we made today, it\u2019s very difficult to be in the semi-final.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Arsenal were without several first team regulars for a match played in driving wind and rain, but Arteta refused to blame either of those factors and was not surprised by the test Southampton gave them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThey are a very good side on a very good run and you have to congratulate them,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to adapt to the wind, the injuries. You have to adapt to difficult situations in the season. Now we have to show what we are made of.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThat Arsenal team had very good moments. They should have capitalised and be going to Wembley, and we haven\u2019t done it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Southampton Manager Tonda Eckert is now unbeaten in 15 matches in all competitions with the south coast club, but is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe put on a good shift today. It was a challenge, we knew it was going to be a tough game. The second half always has the chance to shift and we reacted quite well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou always need to find a balance, it\u2019s not going direct for the sake of going direct. You need spells with shorter solutions and we had a good mix today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBelief is always there, it\u2019s not been a problem. The reality is that the game is close. It\u2019s going to be nice to celebrate today but we open up Wrexham and Championship football tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n –Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30854,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-30853","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta could not hide his disappointment","published_date":"2026-04-05 08:51:31","news_description":"Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta could not hide his disappointment","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30856,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30853\/revisions\/30856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}