M. Arteta complained about the ball after the loss to Newcastle.

2025-01-08 08:49 © AP

London's "Arsenal" began their series of the English League Cup semifinals with a defeat.

In the first match on Tuesday, the "Gunners" lost 0:2 at home to "Newcastle United".

After the match, "Arsenal" manager Mikel Arteta blamed the "Puma" ball for the team's missed opportunities.

"I can give them some advice on how to create a better ball. We made a lot of shots over the goal because this ball just rises too easily," he said.

"It's too late to talk about something now, the match is lost. We will try to bounce back in the return match," Arteta said at the press conference.

Nevertheless, the Spaniard did not want to forget about the topic of the ball.

"This ball is very different from the Premier League ball, but we have to adapt to it," the Spaniard added.