Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta responded to comments made by Antonio Conte criticizing the club for postponing their North London derby.

The Gunners had their request approved to postpone the clash against Tottenham due to several players unavailability as they had quite a number of players out for Various reasons.

But Arteta believes the postponement was fair and plain and it had to be done.

We didn’t have the players necessary to put a squad out to compete in a Premier League match, that is 100 per cent,” said the Spaniard ahead of his team’s EFL Cup semi-final against Liverpool on Thursday.

“This is a no-win situation. When we play the first three games of the season when other games were off, we were killed and called naïve.”

“Now we postpone a match for all the right reasons – believe me – and we get these reactions?”

Their North London rivals Tottenham were furious with the decision made by the Premier league FA to postpone the tournament and followed to release a Press statement that reads

We are extremely surprised that this application has been approved,”

“We do not believe it was the intent to deal with player availability unrelated to Covid. We may now be seeing the unintended consequences of this rule.”

“It is important to have clarity and consistency on the application of the rule. Yet again fans have seen their plans disrupted at unacceptably short notice.”

Tottenham have had 5 games canceled this season due to COVID.

Antonio Conte who was also furious at the Cancelation of the North London Derby said

“I think that it is a mess now but this is the truth,” raged Conte. “It is a big mess for sure. You have to learn to laugh, you have to laugh because they (the Premier League) have totally changed the vision.

“We accept and we play here and for this reason we have to accept every decision. But I think that in every moment you have to show respect for all the teams and players, coaches, for people who work in football.

Mikel Arteta hitting back at this Statement said “We will defend our clubs with teeth and nails. We will not let anybody damage our name or try to lie about things,” the Spaniard replied.

“When a team have come to us and said we cannot play, these are the reasons and the game has been postponed, we have never ever publicly questioned any of that.”

“And we will not because that is why we have the Premier League, the FA and regulators to consider, find out and do the necessary due diligence, which is a lot, to postpone a match.

“We have been very consistent. We played against (Nottingham) Forest when we had 10 players out. We try to play the next game and the next game.”

“We went to Liverpool and had many players out therefore it got to a point where we could not put a squad available, as the numbers required in this league, to play a game. That is why we didn’t play, as simple as that.”

Arsenal will be looking to defeat Liverpool when they face on Thursday for a spot at the final of the Carabao cup.