Mikel Arteta has reacted to Jorginho’s horrendous blunder in Arsenal’s draw against Tottenham Hotspur in a London Derby.
Arteta thrown his support behind Jorginho after the veteran midfielder’s mistake cost Arsenal dear in Sunday’s 2-2 draw against Tottenham.
Jorginho, 31, was thrust into the action at the break after Declan Rice experienced discomfort in his back during the first half. However, the veteran midfielder was still getting to grips with the pace of a frenetic North London Derby when James Maddison pinched the ball from him to tee up Son Heung-min for Spurs’ second goal – just 27 seconds after Bukayo Saka had nudged Arsenal into a 2-1 lead.
Shortly after the match, Arteta was quick to speak out in defence of Jorginho, who arrived at the Emirates from Chelsea back in January. Arteta made it clear that errors are par for the course in football and that Jorginho had the support of everybody at the club.
The Arsenal chief said: “What happened is I love him and we love him. Errors are part of football. They’re allowed to make errors because they play and we don’t play.
“For us it’s really easy, but if there is someone who is willing to help the team and do the most of it, it’s Jorgi. We are all with him.”
While Arteta sympathised with Jorginho, the Spaniard conceded that it felt like his team had dropped two points in the derby. He told Sky Sports: “We feel like we lost two points. It’s true that there was quite a lot of interchange in dominance in the game, but especially when we had more control and more dominance in the game and scored the goal, they scored straight away.
“And it was at one nil, we had the huge chance for Gabi [Jesus]. They were big moments for us. To do that, we still come back in the game, we started quite good [in the second half] and scored the goal and straight away you can see it. Emotionally, I think that was a difficult one to take.”
