Why Mikel Arteta was so 'disappointed' with Arsenal's 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa

Arsenal was left to rue several missed chances in its 1-0 loss to Aston Villa with Mikel Arteta believing his side did enough to get something out of the game.

When Arsenal look back on its 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa, there will be a sense of "what if" as the Gunners did more than enough to not only earn a draw, but win the game.

After John McGinn's seventh-minute goal, the Gunners dominated proceedings and several missed chances in the first half from Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus saw Arsenal control the game with reward.

Unfortunately, it continued in the second half as the Gunners simply lacked the quality in the final third, and when the ball was in the net, VAR overruled it. For Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta, the result is tough to swallow considering how dominant his side was.

“I’m very disappointed with the result,” Arteta said via arsenal.com. “When you perform the way we did today against this team, I haven’t seen a team do what we did to Villa today but we still lost it."

Arsenal managed 12 shots on goal, but only five on target as in the final third, the Gunners lacked the clinical striking we have become accustomed to. And as such, Villa, who were rendered rudderless after the seventh-minute, managed to hold on for a vital win.

With the top of the table now squeezed due to results over the last couple of matchdays, it is getting tight. But after a game where Arsenal played so well aside from putting away its chances, it could be easy for the players to get down on themselves.

But Arteta isn't going to let them.

“I just said to the boys put your head up,” Arteta said. "There’s a lot of things that we’ve done really, really well today, but this is defined in the boxes and today we didn’t have the accuracy that is required at this level to win the game. As I’ve said, I haven’t seen a team do that yet here and we’ve done that today but we have to come away with something much more than what we are doing.”

One just hopes that if Arsenal are in a close title race in May, that we don't look back on this result as the "one that got away" as the last thing fans want is for this result to come back to haunt them.

Otherwise, Arteta won't be the only one "disappointed" with the loss to Villa.