After seeing us beat Chelsea 2-1 to restore our five-point lead at the top of the Premier League table, Mikel Arteta was swiftly in the press room at Emirates Stadium to chat to the media.
He was asked about the key moments, set pieces, David Raya’s display, injuries and winning ugly – here is everything he had to say:
on a close contest:
A proper London derby. We expected that because of the quality of the opposition, because of the individual quality that they have, and because we played them four times already, so we know how good and difficult they are to play against. After we started the game so well, the first half was very, very dominant. I think the margin and the scoreline should have been bigger. But we were 1-1, so game on. I reminded them that we were in exactly the same position against the Spurs seven days ago in that dressing room. They said, look what happened in the second half, so we’re going to do it again.
But probably we’re going to have to go through some difficult patches to end the right to win the game. We certainly did that. We took the moment to score the second goal and after the red card, we all expected a very different outcome in the last few minutes. But we didn’t manage to control and dominate that scenario as well as we wanted. On top of that, Chelsea did some very, very good things in that period and we needed David to win us the game.
on having to level up our set pieces each game:
Every team, to be fair, look where they are in terms of the amount of goals that they score. And they have more quality in their score probably than anybody else to create. And the team and the game at the end got decided in this aspect. We hadn’t scored from set pieces for a few weeks now, but we scored so many in open play. Today was an option to score from this kind of situation. We’ve done it so well but we conceded as well.
on David Raya’s performance and personality:
David is one of our leaders without a doubt. He’s a keeper who knows how to maintain his focus and decide a football match when you need him. Because sometimes he doesn’t participate at all and then in one action you have to be there, and that’s very, very difficult to do. And the save that he made in the last action – it’s a cross, it’s not a shot, but it ended up being an unbelievable shot. I got the right angle and my heart almost stopped, but David’s hand was there to get it back to life.
on whether Raya suffered an injury at the end:
I don’t know what happened in that action. He had some niggles this week so I don’t know if he’s related to that. But overall, very happy.
Read more Gabriel on Chelsea win and a “big battle”
on the challenge of controlling emotions:
That’s what we have to do – train. Gaining context in those scenarios is becoming really difficult because we don’t have time to train. And to replicate those moments is almost impossible because the emotional part is not there, and the quality of the opponent – you cannot do it basically. But it’s certainly something that we’ll discuss tomorrow because we have to improve it and do better. But at the same time, you have to give credit to Chelsea for the manner in which they’ve done it. The way they use the keeper as an extra player, the courage that they show., how they get out from tight situations, it’s unbelievable. Any player, Lavia, Caicedo, Cole, there aren’t many players that can do that, and cause you the problem and turn you around.
on whether Mikel has a black eye:
I’m very good, thank you! I’m going to give you a hug now. Thank you for checking on me! I’m very good.
on the manner of today’s win:
I’m trying to stay calm, but obviously we weren’t getting the dominance and the sequences of play that we wanted and expected against the 10 men. So you have to navigate through that, and it’s a big part of the game. When you see the manner in which other teams are winning games, everybody’s suffering. The manner and the margins are so small, so it’s good.
on any fitness problems ahead of Wednesday:
I don’t know. Declan has to be substituted so he’s going to have to get checked and see if he’s available for Wednesday, unfortunately. And the rest hopefully OK. But we don’t know.
on maintaining a consistent XI:
We haven’t done it. We’re going to have to make changes and give opportunities to everybody to be fresh.
on facing “ugly games” for the rest of the season:
It’s not ugly. You have to play the game that is there for you to play, and against Chelsea, you know exactly the game that you’re going to play. For me, it’s a beautiful game to play because they have so much quality, and you have to adapt so much to what they do, and they have to do the same against us. So the margins are very, very small, and the duels at the end decide these kinds of games. Hopefully we can play many top games like this.
Read more Highlights: Arsenal 2-1 Chelsea
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