Mikel Arteta was delighted with the way his side swatted away Sevilla as Arsenal took another step towards the Champions League last 16.
Despite a swathe of injuries, the Gunners made light work of the Europa League champions with Bukayo Saka assisting Leandro Trossard before making sure of the 2-0 win with a fine finish of his own on 64 minutes.
While Sevilla sat deep and tried to make life difficult in their box, they rarely posed a threat going forward and had to wait until the 96th minute to register an attempt on David Raya’s goal.
“I’m really, really happy with the performance of the team,” Arteta told TNT Sports. “The maturity that they showed, the commitment, the aggression to go at them and straight away in the game we wanted to dominate it and play in the final third.
“When we lost the ball we were incredibly good at winning it back so early. It’s really difficult in Europe to control the game the way we’ve done, to score the goals that we scored and we’re in a good position [to qualify].”
The Gunners enjoyed 60% of possession and completed nearly double the number of passes of their opponents with Jorginho and Declan Rice taking a stranglehold of the midfield.
“That’s what we wanted,” said Arteta about the control enjoyed by his side, “because a team like that, when you let them run, they are really dangerous.
“When you let them get set in your own half and they start to put crosses in the box, they are a really dangerous team and I think we allowed them one shot in the 94th, 95th minute. So, really good, that’s what you need in Europe.”
"I'm really really happy with the team tonight"
"Tomiyasu was feeling something, Bukayo had a knock"
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta shares his delight and provides injury updates on his players 📄#UCL | 🎙️ @J_Dyer_Official pic.twitter.com/dMZCgBuLaO
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) November 8, 2023
If there was a sour note to the evening it was the possibility of further injury issues. Already without Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Jesus, Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe, Thomas Partey and Jurrien Timber, Arsenal were forced to substitute Takehiro Tomiyasu at half time and then saw Bukayo Saka take a knock to his ankle.
The manager is hoping tonight’s injured parties aren’t too serious.
“Tomi was feeling something, so we didn’t want to take any risks so we brought Alex [Zinchenko] back. With Bukayo it was a knock and with the other ones hopefully they are good because at the moment we are missing some players.”
After two defeats in a row, Arteta was also pleased to get back to winning ways.
“I didn’t need a response in terms of performance because the way the boys played in Newcastle I was really happy with.
“It was about winning. We lost the game [on Saturday] and now we wanted to to win because winning helps and it’s the best way to prepare again for the tough game that we’re gonna face against Burnley [on Saturday].”
Another solid defensive display, but we are still missing that killer instinct fox in the box. The number of balls Martinelli had in the box Giroud would have scored a hatrick if he was playing at Arsenal. Hopefully Jesus and Odegard will be back soon. Saka will most likely miss the Burnley game and Southgate will have mercy on us.
Rice win a lot of ball back in defence. I was wondering if he can do wonders in attack. His legs is always an inch longer and faster then the opponent. Wonder if Arteta ever thought of that.
Genuinely interested in what fellow gooners think of this seasons more controlled style of play? For me the Crystal Palace game last year and the Bournemouth games at the start of the season were the absolute zenith. I felt our attacking play couldn’t be improved on unless we had a Messi type figure in our attack. That being said we weren’t half as solid at the back and you know the saying “attacks win games, defences win leagues” I don’t know but I genuinely think we have a great chance of a champions league semi final at least. When you… Read more »
When we win by totally bossing a game like today, I’m all in favor of our more controlled game. Whenever we don’t win, it’s easy to start to question it. I think in the end, my hopes for the season are less tied to control vs chaos, more about our ability to expect high performance levels from a greater number of players than last season. I think we can only get better, bar injuries.
To be frank, it drives me up the wall sometimes…To me, Arsenal should always be a free flowing team, lots of goals, beautiful team and individual goals. Sure we might let in a few more goals but I don’t mind conceding, scoring should be our mantra! But I like winning too so I guess it’s tolerable when we win but utterly infuriating when we play like we did at West Ham and in the 2nd half of Newcastle
100%. Main reason i fell in love with Arsenal in the first place was our style of play. At this point I’ll support the club no matter what but do feel a bit betrayed at the back of my mind when we play more for control than to score. It’s never been just about winning for me or I would’ve probably picked some other shitty “big” club to root for that wins more than we do, it’s more about how you win, to try to do it with style and class, that’s much harder.
Can’t deny that we look really good defensively, but we looked really good defensively last season too, until Saliba and Tomiyasu got season-enders. I din’t really think it’s true that last season we didn’t look half as solid at the back. Until that point our defence was exceptionally good. The attack is a slight worry but not a huge one, and we’ve been hampered by constant injuries in midfield and attack (as well as replacing Xhaka and, more or less, Partey, two regular starting midfielders from last season). I’m confident it will improve if we have better luck with injuries,… Read more »
Do think we look even better defensively this year. Last year you’d still have the occasional brain freeze at the back from Zinchenko or Partey, this year so far Tomiyasu and Rice have fixed that, now all of our “back 5” are really effing good at defending and not making mistakes.
Our goals came from accelerated play, and I do think we’ve missed that in most of our control type games. If you’re just going to play against a low block, you need the little angles we were creating last year, especially between White, Odegaard and Saka, and those haven’t been working this season. I prefer variation rather than one style.
Yeah, a three course meal😜