Mikel Arteta spoke to BT Sport after Arsenal’s 2-0 win over West Ham at the Emirates this evening. Here’s what he had to say.
A performance of intensity and a good win …
Absolutely. I’m really, really pleased with the performance, the the quality, the energy, the passion that the team was able to transmit ,how we engaged again with the crowd. We had some really good moments. It’s a really difficult team to play against, they have a lot of solution in their threat in many many ways, and I think we controlled them pretty well. So I’m pleased for the boys.
Dominant in the first half, but Martinelli delivered in the second …
Yes, it was a great goal. The first one … that’s what Gabby can do and he is always a threat in behind. The defenders are willing to come to engage him and this space is really good for him to exploit. The second one was on the counter, it’s a shame that we missed a penalty in that moment because that would give us a little bit more time to relax. But against this team you cannot relax they have the capacity in any action to score a goal.
You’ve come a long way, in the top four for the first time in 14 months …
It was a big game for us, obviously, having the capacity to go above them and go fourth. It was a statement. We’ve been pretty strong at home and we needed to put another big performance against a really difficult team and and I think we’ve done that.
The captaincy issue didn’t distract anyone …
No, they were fully focused. They wanted to show how strong we are as a team and the performance and aptitude and the commitment that they show today is exactly what we asked of them – not just myself but as a club.
You were Arsenal captain, what do you expect of this role?
We have a leadership group and I expect them, and I expect from every player, to stick to our values and and do what they have to do. And then they have a group that they have to enjoy themselves, and live in that room because enjoyment is a big part of that. Then play with passion and and that’s it.
On re-establishing a relationship with Aubameyang …
We’ll talk about that another day. Today I want to focus on the game.
Is he eligible for selection for the next game?
He wasn’t eligible for this game. That’s it. And this game is gone. We will talk about it in the near future.
Balls firmly in Aubas court. If he gets his head down he should be on the bench for the weekend.
It would be great to have him on the bench against Leeds and this whole saga dies down before he leaves for AFCON.
I suspect he won’t be back at all. It smells a bit like the Ozil situation but early days I guess.
For all his flamboyance and supposed truancy, Auba is a humble guy and has good heads around him. His dad was a professional footballer and is still very involved in P.E.A’s career. I believe he will convince P.E.A to do the right thing after he calms down.
I meant more that he will be frozen out as opposed to his character. Still don’t know what to make of this given we don’t know the details and some (less than reliable) media sources are now reporting things like Arteta was ‘furious’ because Auba held a birthday party for his son, resulting in the spread of covid ahead of the Brentford game. On the other hand we don’t know whether Auba completely disregarded a request to fly back on Wednesday evening rather than Thursday morning or something else happened. Sorting this out would be far more preferable to dragging… Read more »
Guy deserves a bit of credit.
Who’s Guy?
Dat Guy Welbz
Guy Mowbray
Diane Nguyen’s husband.
Guy Demel
Hell no!
He obviously meant Guy Ritchie.
After all, we shot them down with TWO SMOKING BARRELS.
I am patient and I am willing to trust the process. This is a very young team and there will be hickups and I will accept that without crying a river
We don’t have an attacker in the top 50 at the moment.
https://www.footballcritic.com/top-players/attackers
We could expect to get one of those in the top 10.
But why would those top 10 players want to join Arsenal and not play im Europe
Neither does Bayern Munich according to this website, so I’m ok!
Martinelli will be in that list soon enough
A large part of the current the current issue is chance creation. A ‘better’ forward won’t necessarily fix that. Having said that, the Auba thing has accelerated the need for a new forward. Will be interesting to see who we go for. European football will play a role in who is willing to come to us.
Wtf is that list? Why is Ferran Torres 8th when he hasn’t played for 2 months? Where is Salah?! Lewandowski?!?
First time we’ve controlled a match for 90minutes against a decent side under Arteta…we completely smothered a very physical side .. arguably our best match under him…
This is exactly right. I just read the match blog on the WHU site and they wrote that this Arsenal team was much more physical than last year’s. We’ve seen dominance in 20 or 45 minute bursts and many have wanted to see it for 90 minutes and now we have.
Back four were solid – Antonio moved around but was out fought wherever he went. Partey was good tonight. Up front laca plays that role better than anyone else we have at the moment. Saka and Martinelli were both outstanding.
I’ve been seeing that phrase a few times this season, proof things are finally going in the right direction. There will be more fuck ups I’m sure before the season’s end but so far it’s an improvement on last season.
This team will be unbelievable after two more transfer windows.
We have the foundation for a great team in place.
A fearsome strike force is quietly emerging.
The defence is taking shape nicely.
The midfield will get stronger.
All we need this season is to deliver European football (not Conference League), next season.
Next season could really see us push the top 3 teams.
Exciting times.
Fair play, the auba thing could have been a big distraction but seems to have galvanised the team.
We controlled every blade of grass today! How nice is it to see such a **balanced** team and performance!! Well done everyone!!
If you say so Mikel…
Finally a game we controlled – though we did drop into a fairly deep block after 60 minutes and you wonder how things would have turned out if they hadn’t had a man sent off.
But overall, I like.
Still, I have no idea why Arteta thinks it’s a good idea to be so damn mysterious as to Auba’s status.
But to be honest, they did not really press us , that is major difference. I am sure we can work well against the press but with Xhaka type errors anyone could be all over us
I’ve backed Arteta from day 1.. really liked his strong stance on non negotiable to the players as they were too comfortable.. and his project is simple to invest in quality young players and for this same group when experienced to challenge for trophies.. he’s a smart young manager just hope fans give him the time he needs