Hector Bellerin has used Dominick Cruz's apology after losing at UFC 207 to try and explain his own under-performance last night against Bournemouth.
After Dominick Cruz was defeated by Cody Garbrandt in UFC 207, he earned plaudits for his brilliantly excuse-free press conference after the fight. Cruz held his hands up and said that while he had been at "100%" he would take his loss "like a man" and would be back.
Loss is part of life. If you don't have loss, you don't grow. This isn't tough, this is life.
Cruz was out-fought on the night and was judged by unanimous decision to have been second-best. For much of Arsenal's ridiculous 3-3 draw away to Bournemouth last night, the Gunners were second-best and were out-fought all around the pitch - until the last twenty minutes of the game when they seemed to wake up from their stupor and, inspired by Olivier Giroud, had Bournemouth hanging on by the end of the match.
After the game there was much finger-pointing in the direction of Arsenal's (usually brilliant) left-back Hector Bellerin. Bellerin was out-paced by Ryan Fraser for his goal after being caught in no-man's land for Bournemouth's opener and was generally well below-par throughout the game.
And Bellerin has used Cruz to try and apologise to Arsenal fans for his display.
Hector Bellerin Dominick Cruz post
One wonders what Dominick Cruz would think of Bellerin's post - after all, Cruz was beaten, but you could hardly accuse him of hiding from his responsibilities in the octagon. Arsenal looked like they didn't fancy it for most of the game against a team that are greatly inferior to them.
On the other hand, fair play to Bellerin for holding his hands up. It shows that he is aware that his performance wasn't good enough and is willing to take ownership of that - and, therefore, it probably indicates that we won't see a performance like that from Bellerin for some time.
