‘Not up to our usual standards’: Bukayo Saka sees room for improvement from Arsenal

Bukayo Saka has said Arsenal will be punished if they repeat the “sloppiness and bad decisions” they displayed in Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Arsenal claimed all three points through Riccardo Calafiori’s 13th-minute header after the United goalkeeper, Altay Bayindir, palmed the ball on to the left-back’s head from a Declan Rice corner. Overall, the visitors were ineffective, managing only nine shots to United’s 22. United also dominated possession, with a 61.9% share.

“It was not a great performance,” Saka said. “We were not up to our usual standards, the basics, sloppy giveaways. Our decision-making was not great and that cost us and gave United a lot of momentum. We did not get punished for it, but we can not do it every game.”

Viktor Gyökeres had a muted Premier League debut after his £65m arrival from Sporting last month and was replaced after 60 minutes. Saka has backed the Sweden striker to come good. “I was impressed with him and he battled for us,” said the winger. “His performance gives us something to build on and I am sure it will help him next week. He has slotted in well and so have the other guys.”

Keeper David Raya echoed Saka’s analysis. “[It’s] a difficult place to come and get the three points and a clean sheet,” he told arsenal.com. “But we know it wasn’t good enough with the ball and we made a lot of mistakes, so there’s a lot of things to improve.”

“We know coming to this place how important it is to be alert. [It’s] the willingness [that’s important], the fight, the spirit that we have altogether, where things are not going our way and we make mistakes, everybody’s sprinting back and trying to help the teammate that’s made a mistake to recover the ball and to do the right thing.

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“We did that and we dug deep very, very well, especially the last 10-15 minutes where they threw everything to us and we defended very well”

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