Diego Simeone rued Atletico Madrid’s “individual mistakes” after a humbling defeat to Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
The visitors could have taken the lead early in the second-half after Julian Alvarez hit the crossbar but then Simeone’s side were powerless to stop a red onslaught at the Emirates.
Goals from Gabriel, Gabriel Martinelli and a Viktor Gyokeres double in the space of 13 minutes stunned the visitors and Simeone admitted his team have “lessons to learn” after their second defeat in three Champions League games this season, following their opening week loss to Liverpool.
“We competed very well until the first Arsenal goal, then we couldn’t compete,” Simeone said, in his post-match press conference.
“It can come down to fine margins in terms of taking the game into your control or not and it’s not down to bad luck, it’s down to mistakes. They made the most of our mistakes. They took their chances and all their big chances turned into goals.”
Alvarez came close to a goal in the first-half when he shot just wide after David Raya went walkabout, while Eberechi Eze hit the crossbar in a first half where Arsenal were the strongest.
Simeone added: “We could have scored with Julian Alvarez in the first half, he hit the bar in the second half, we competed well as a team but this is a lesson we can learn. You have to be clinical in different phases of the game.
“It’s individual mistakes that affect the team, it’s losing your man in a set-piece, for the third goal we were too meek and ended up conceding a goal from that.
“These are small details that can turn the game in one team’s favour… there are situations we can resolve collectively but when it comes to individual decisions, it’s hard to help with that.”
While the Gunners have three wins from three in Europe and currently sit joint-top of the 36-team table alongside PSG and Inter Milan, Atletico now have work to do to qualify for the knockout phase.
Simeone’s team, twice runners-up in this competition in 2014 and 2016, are currently 18th in the standings with five matches to play, which would only qualify them for the play-off round. They next host Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise on 4 November.
