Arteta hits back at Conte after angry comments on postponed North London derby

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has defended the club's successful request to postpone last Sunday's North London derby.

The Premier League agreed to delay the Gunners' trip to rivals Tottenham due to several players being unavailable.

Arsenal currently have three players at the Africa Cup of Nations, five injuries, one suspension and one positive Covid case.

They do, however, have nine stars out on loan - soon to be 10 with Pablo Mari's impending move to Udinese - and recently let Sead Kolasinac join Marseille.

The Gunners also allowed Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who can be deployed in a number of positions, join Roma on loan earlier this month.

Was it the right decision to postpone last Sunday's North London derby? Let us know in the comments below!

But Arteta believes the postponement was fair, insisting it was done for "the right reasons".

"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?"

Tottenham were furious with the Premier League's decision to delay the North London Derby, releasing a statement on Saturday evening.

"We are extremely surprised that this application has been approved," noted Spurs.

They added: "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."

And Tottenham manager Antonio Conte was keen to make his opinion heard at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

Spurs have played just 18 Premier League games this season due to Covid postponements - five fewer than Chelsea in third.

"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.

"I think we have a big problem to solve and it's Covid, but only about this situation can you decide to postpone, not for other situations.

"Honestly, it's my first time in my life - and I've had a bit of experience in football - to see this type of decision.

"If you remember, we were the first team to have an important outbreak, maybe the only team with so many Covid cases. Maybe 11, 12, the whole staff, Under-23 players.

"Despite this, I have seen a bit of difficulty to accept this and if you remember we only postponed one game for our positive cases and then we were ready to play also in the Conference League and then at Leicester, after only one week I remember.

"It's a tough period, but at the same time I think we have to face the situation and if there is important cases of Covid in the teams then it's right to postpone the game.

"Otherwise, we are the first to want to play and my club, the players, me and my staff because we work to play games."