Mikel Arteta was disappointed with Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat away to Inter but suggested performance levels could provide reason for optimism heading into the second half of the Champions League group.

When asked for his assessment of our loss in Italy, he expressed pride in our efforts despite the result.

“The worst thing of the night is definitely the result, because the level of performance we had, the dominance we had and the opportunities we created, the way we played against one of the best teams in Europe in their stadium, I didn’t see it in the other matches I watched,” he said. “The truth is we lost the game and that’s on us. It was very painful for us because we had more than enough to get something out of the game, but there were also situations that determined the game.

“This is the truth. The box is every decision. Those for and against will have a big impact because the margins are so small. Today we made the margins much larger in many parts of the field and I was expecting a certain pattern. Winning this wasn’t enough.

“After all, we are here to win and we haven’t been able to do that so we are still extremely disappointed. We still have half the competition to play and if we keep playing the way we did today we will win a lot of games.”