'They are fuming!' - Mikel Arteta reveals angry Arsenal dressing room reaction to 'upset' Real Betis defeat

Arsenal were brought back down to earth on Wednesday evening after suffering a disappointing 3-1 pre-season defeat against Real Betis. The English side struggled defensively from the outset at a packed Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

The Spanish outfit quickly raced into a two-goal lead inside the opening exchanges through strikes from Rodrigo Riquelme and Nelson Deossa. While Piero Hincapie managed to pull one back for the Gunners, former West Ham United midfielder Pablo Fornals restored the two-goal advantage shortly before half-time.

Despite the incredibly sloppy performance on the pitch, Arteta was quietly pleased with the passionate reaction from his squad. The Spaniard revealed that the players were visibly frustrated with their own defensive lapses during the interval.

"Very upset, given a hard time. They are fuming, but this is good. That's what we need," he said, as quoted by ESPN. "Well, the important part is to win it and we didn't manage to win it, so disappointed obviously for the result. It's true we used 25 players, so you need to give a bit of context to the game."

Arteta fielded an unchanged starting line-up from the side that beat Girona 4-1 last week, featuring Kai Havertz, Viktor Gyokeres, and new signing Christos Tzolis. However, their usual rhythm was completely disrupted by uncharacteristic mistakes.

"In the first half, with more starters, two very different things, how we played and how we competed, because we had some fantastic moments in the time we played," Arteta explained.

"The way we competed especially in and around our box in a number of standards that we are used to, so there are things to improve obviously, some positives to take from the game and then a bad result sometimes it's good to create even more fire in the belly."

The Gunners will now look to quickly address their defensive frailties as their summer training camp concludes. Arteta's men must swiftly rediscover their rhythm before the new competitive campaign officially gets under way, with them set to face Man City in the Community Shield on August 16.