Emi Martinez has revealed that Mikel Arteta urged his players to show their ‘animal side’ after giving them a half time dressing down during their 1-0 win against Leeds United.
The Gunners were outfought, outsmarted and outplayed by the Championship side in every department during the early stages and were lucky, having conceded 15 shots, to make it to the break without conceding.
The home side showed a marked improvement after 15 minutes spent in the company of their furious head coach and ground out a win, and an FA Cup 4th round tie with Bournemouth, courtesy of Reiss Nelson’s 55th-minute strike.
After the game, Martinez told Arsenal.com: “It was tough for us we should have been one or two-nil down, but we held them well and in the second half we did an incredible performance and we deserved to win.
“If you thought it was going to be an easy game, you’d be so wrong. They fight like animals, and they did. In the first 35 minutes, they were winning every single thing but we talked at half-time about the things we could improve and in the second half we were amazing.
“We knew that if we didn’t change, we lose the game and we’d be out. We could not afford to do that especially in front of our home support.”
On Arsenal’s appalling start and the strong words of the boss, he added: “I think they were winning every 50/50 and they were just getting the ball back very soon.
“They were pressing really hard and it was very difficult to get out how we did in training but in the second half, the manager said, ‘If we don’t win 50/50s, we are going to lose the game.’
“The lads went out there and, the gaffer says we need to ‘run like a wolf’ and have that animal side to us. I thought we did really well, we ran like we should have from the first minute. We’re delighted for the win and we move on.
“He [Arteta] was really angry but that’s what we need. We can’t switch off after a good win against Manchester United and I think we did in the first five minutes, we did switch off and that shouldn’t happen especially at home.”
Tonight’s clean sheet was Martinez’s third in eight games this season; not a bad return given how poor we’ve been at the back. He’s determined to keep up his decent form whenever he gets a chance to play.
“Whenever they give me a game I try to keep a clean sheet and give the back four confidence with the goalkeeper behind them.
“There is competition between me and Bernd, we’re both young and I just want to play games and try to do my best in the cup competitions.”
Reminds me of Wenger’s play like wolves talk. We’ve got a great coach on our hands! COYG!
Arsene never set us up to hunt like wolves, this is more out of Pep’s manual. Arteta is saying the right things and doing the right things, long may our upward surge continue.
he absolutely did do that during the big years. You have a short memory.
Emi deserves a lot of credit this season, we have two really good keepers.
I dont think he is close enough yet to be a #1 but if he had to fill in I wouldnt shit myself
Yep Martinez I think is one of our better number two keepers – When you look back that’s an area we’ve not been great – Ospina, Almunia, Fabianski, Stuart Taylor, Richard Wright.
Fabianski was a superb #2
DAMN now this shit is in my head!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJL-lCzEXgI
I see I wasn’t the only one!
There are much worse songs to get stuck in one’s head, though, I’ll say that.
I’m sure Emery saw this side of the Arsenal many times and to be fair, it must have been frustrating to him not able to do a proper hairdryer due to his limitation on communication.
More to do with “unable to command respect” than communication issues, from what I had seen under Emery. The players clearly didn’t find his method flexible – too rigid I must say. Building from the back with Papa, Luiz and Guendouzi/Xhaka is a recipe for disaster and we stuck to trying that for several months despite shitting our pants instead of kicking it out once in a while and be pragmatic. I truly felt the rigidity caused the players in not believing his methods would ever come to fruition and eventually gave up on Emery. Anyway, onwards and upwards in… Read more »
Having images of Suarez biting people if he were in the team.
?
I start half marathon training this week and I tell you what… “run like a wolf” is my new motto. Hah. Love it!
As a marathon runner I seriously suggest that you don’t. Don’t hurt yourself doing the wrong thing mate.
Martinez and Holding were the two biggest offenders with poor passing giving away possession. I guess Rob is finding his way back after injury, but Emi needs to tighten that up.
I think part of the first half problem lies in the fact that Holding was very rusty and creating insecurities at the back with abysmal passing. Also Papa was playing way out of his comfort Zone. Guendouzi is nowhere near Torreira in tackling, positioning and ball recoveries. We were very lucky.
Meow!