Arsenal suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Manchester City on Sunday meaning the Gunners now have only 22 points from their first 17 league matches.
De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling inflicted a 3-0 loss to the Gunners and speaking after the game, Freddie Ljungberg has revealed how despite knowing what to do, his players failed to work that out on the pitch.
According to the interim boss, the Arsenal players knew beating City would be a tough ask but the class of Kevin De Bruyne was their undoing.
The manager also added that Arsenal current need to work on the tactical aspect of their game if they wish to pick up wins in the Premier League.
Ljungberg said[as reported by the club’s official website]: “Of course we know in the last couple of years that we’ve struggled against City at home, so we knew that before the game started.
“We started well when Martinelli had a chance and we thought, ‘Oh, this looks good’. But we got done on the transitions again. One of the goals we had five of us against two of them and they still scored.
“We worked a lot on being balanced and having players back for the counter, but then De Bruyne showed his quality. Not many players can score those goals like he did today from small chances. Maybe it shows the difference in the teams.
“They score from those chances with top, top players. I think what we can learn is that we got done on the transitions again.
“If you look at City, when we were able to counter against them – and that was one of our game plans – they had five yellow cards from bringing us down when we had a chance to counter. That’s tactical and they worked on that.
“That’s something that we need to do. Maybe we need to learn to be more cynical when opponents have a chance to counter us. That is a bit of a weakness of ours and maybe we need to take those fouls.”
Next up, Arsenal take on Everton away from home and given the poor away form of the Gunners, there’s every chance they will drop points at Goodison Park as well.
