ARTETA MOANS ABOUT LENGTH OF GRASS AT BURNLEY

MIKEL ARTETA bemoaned Burnley’s old-school tactics and the Turf Moor pitch after his side failed to break down Burnley yesterday. The Arsenal manager complained of ‘difficult conditions’ and said the grass was allowed to grow and was not watered before kick-off. Arteta claimed he was expecting a heavy pitch and adjusted the training ground surfaces at their London Colney base last week. ‘The grass was this long,’ Arteta said while gesturing. ‘They didn’t put any water on it and obviously that is not a very helpful thing to play football. ‘I didn’t water the pitch yesterday at the training ground so I was expecting it but that doesn’t make it easier to play.’ They are not the first away team to encounter difficulties at Turf Moor, with both Manchester City and Liverpool suffering power outages inside the away dressing room here over the last two seasons. ‘It’s their game,’ Arteta added. ‘It’s their strength, you’re allowed to do it, so we have to adapt. We adapted really well in some moments and in some others it wasn’t (because of) the grass. ‘It’s the quality and what they do they do really well and we could not cope with that.’ Arsenal defender Shkodran Mustafi said: ‘We dealt well with it. It is not our type of football. We tried to put pressure on so they couldn’t do it easily. It was important to win the second balls and in parts we did it very well.’ Burnley manager Sean Dyche hit back at Arsenal, suggesting players went down too easily. ‘It is lovely to watch when people are falling over, it is my favourite part,’ he said sarcastically. ‘No one wants to address it apart from me, so I am absolutely happy with the state of the game.’