Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has stood by his comments criticising the Premier League for his side's fixture schedule until the end of the season.
Arteta sarcastically said 'thank you to the Premier League' and claimed it was 'not fair' that the Gunners have to travel to Aston Villa on Saturday lunchtime having been in action in their 2-0 defeat against Liverpool on Wednesday night.
The Gunners are facing a similarly tight turnaround next month when they travel to Chelsea on the night of Wednesday 20 April before hosting top-four rivals Manchester United in the early weekend kick-off on Saturday 23 April.
Asked if he stood by what he said earlier this week, the Spaniard replied: 'I do because I am talking about the Premier League. I'm complaining how we schedule the games in the Premier League.
'When you are in Europe it's a different story. We are the only team that is scheduled like that.'
When posed with the counter argument that every club in the top flight has to abide by whatever the Premier League decides, Arteta added: 'They can do it, we have to accept it.
'We are going to be playing, that is not a problem. It is how can we do it to be more fair, and to have equality in every game. Again, this is out of Europe. Europe is not counted here, it is out of this conversation.
'The first thing is to protect the players. We mentioned this many times, can we please avoid the Wednesday night and the Saturday morning and the travelling and all those things.
'I understand they have the commitments with TV... but if you do it once, OK, but don't do it twice, because we still have to put the Spurs fixture (somewhere). Are we going to be the only ones to do it for a third time?'
Arsenal successfully requested to have the north London derby at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium - initially scheduled for January - postponed after the Premier League accepted a request from the depleted Gunners.
But asked if he was concerned by when the clash will be rearranged for, Arteta added: 'Yes. Because I don't know and we're not going to be deciding and it is going to be very important.'
When asked if he would be speaking to top-flight bosses about the issue, he said: 'That is nothing to do with me. The club has to arrange that.'
