‘The right reasons’: Mikel Arteta defends Arsenal over postponed Spurs game

Mikel Arteta has defended Arsenal’s decision to successfully apply for Sunday’s Premier League match with Tottenham to be postponed.

Arsenal, who are due to host Liverpool in Thursday’s Carabao Cup semi-final second leg, made the request with a number of players unavailable owing to a mixture of international duty, injuries, suspension and Covid-19 cases.

“We didn’t have the players necessary to put a squad out to compete in a Premier League match, that is 100%” Arteta said. “This is a no-win situation. When we play the first three games of the season when other games were off, we were killed and called naive. Now we postpone a match for all the right reasons, believe me, and we get these reactions?”

Spurs reacted angrily to the north London derby being postponed. Tottenham manager Antonio Conte questioned the decision by the Premier League on Tuesday, saying: “It’s my first time in my life – and I’ve had a bit of experience in football – to see postpone games because of injuries.”

But Arteta said: “We have been very consistent. We played [Nottingham] Forest when we had 10 players out. It got to a point where we could not put a squad out; that is why we didn’t play. As simple as that.”