Every word from Arteta's post-Inter Milan press conference | Press conference | News

After suffering our first Champions League defeat of the season on Wednesday evening, Mikel Arteta faced the media at the Stadio San Siro.

He was asked about the team's performance and his opinion on whether we should have had a penalty and gave an update on Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino.

On his assessment of the game…

The worst thing about this evening is certainly the result, because the performance, the attitude, the dominance that we showed in this stadium against one of the best teams in Europe, I haven't seen that in any of the other games I've watched, but that Reality is the result and we took part in it because we had a lot of situations that we were able to solve much better in front of the goal and score at least two goals, and then we were also extremely frustrated because there were two decisions that were made in the end The end marks the result and the course of the game.

Regarding the two penalty decisions for both teams…

I don't understand (the decision), it's just a distraction, there's no danger at all, you can't react because you're very close, but ok, they decide it's a penalty. But if that's a penalty, then the one against Mikel Merino when he hits him in the head must 1000% be a penalty, and those are the margins in this game, and that's very, very difficult to accept.

Whether he feels that we didn't manage to create enough chances for ourselves…

The concern tonight is the result and obviously we didn't do what we needed to do in both boxes at the end. If we didn't do it, then someone else didn't do it and that's it. In any case, I would like to see my team like that. All the big games we have in Europe have been by far the best we have played in recent years.

How much the penalty decisions decided the game…

Unfortunately there's nothing we can do, we won't be able to change it, so unfortunately we have to accept it and move on.

About the handball rule and Havertz’s injury…

We were told at the start of the season that it wasn't a penalty, that was clear. Today was a different story. As for Kai, yes, he has a big part. He had to move out because he needed a few stitches, but hopefully he'll be fine this weekend.

On the question of whether Merino was out due to injury…

He didn't have a concussion. But yesterday and today he wasn't feeling so well. When I looked at it later I decided to take it off because I 100% need it.

Why the referee spoke to him in the second half…

It was a private, interesting conversation.

Whether it will be difficult to sign the players for Chelsea…

If we play the way we are playing, we have a great chance of winning against Chelsea. That is the path we must take. I told them I was proud of them. I've never seen them play like they do today in Europe. We are disappointed because we certainly didn't achieve what we wanted.