Arteta admits he is 'worried' by Arsenal's lack of goals after drawing Leeds

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has admitted he is concerned about the team's failure to score goals after producing firing yet another blank against Leeds United.

The Gunners could only muster a 0-0 draw at Elland Road with Nicolas Pepe's early second half dismissal stiffling the team, who have failed to hit the back of the net in four of their last five Premier League games.

Arteta's men have endured an up-and-down campaign thus far and find themselves in 11th place after nine games, and the Spaniard said Arsenal's current lack of firepower was standing in their way of becoming a 'top team'.

'It worries me obviously because we need goals and we need a lot of goals to win football matches and to be the top team that we want to be - without that it's impossible,' he said after the game.

'It doesn't matter how good we are defensively. It's not a lack of attacking players that we have, because we have attacking players on the pitch all the time, but we need some moments where we have to make decisions earlier, better and they have to be more ruthless.

'But it's the most difficult thing in football and sometimes we go through these patches and we have to overcome them and I have to help the players to do it as quick as possible.'

Arsenal's top scorer is star forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with just two Premier League goals, with the Gabon striker scoring once since September.

He struggled again and was unable to stamp his mark on the game, but Arteta said his frontline showed glimpses of quality in the first half. He conceded, however, that his side found it tough going against Marcelo Bielsa's high-pressing side.

'In some moments it worked really well. We had a patch in the first half, a patch of 25 minutes when we were really good, efficient, we pressed high, we created some really good opportunities, and made it really hard for them.

'Then there was a spell in the 15 or 20 minutes of the first half where we started to give the ball away, we did not control certain spaces against them and they suffocated us, which they were always going to do. They did it against every team in the Premier League.

'It's impossible to dominate this team for 90 minutes. And then in the second half when you hope that you are going to get things adjusted and better, we go to 10 men and then obviously it's a mountain to climb.'

Arsenal's job of scoring goals was certainly made much harder after a petulant header from Pepe on Ezgjan Alioski in just the 51st minute of the game.

Things boiled over when the pair exchanged pushes before Pepe made the decisive contact, with Alioski quickly falling to ground. Anthony Taylor then gave him an early bath after reviewing the footage on the pitch-side monitor.

Arteta called the £72million man's conduct 'unacceptable' after handing him a rare start and an opportunity to impress.

'It's unacceptable. I told him it's unacceptable. We knew the level of intensity, aggression and how alive Leeds are in every action.

'You need to be able to deal with that because it's part of the plan against this team.'