After seeing his team score six times against West Ham United, Mikel Arteta revealed that he felt that something special was in store after seeing his players in action this week.
We blew the Hammers away to record our biggest-ever away in the Premier League, with Bukayo Saka grabbing a brace and William Saliba, Gabriel, Leandro Trossard and Declan Rice all getting in on the act too.
The victory was our fourth on the spin, and the boss felt that his team were keen to follow up last weekend’s win over Liverpool with another massive performance, as well as avenge the two defeats inflicted on us by David Moyes’ side earlier in the season.
When asked what he liked most about our display in east London, Mikel said: “I felt that the team had the right desire, straight after Liverpool, because it was something still in their tummy about what happened with West Ham at the Emirates and we wanted to put it right. If you want to be at the top, we're going to have to be really consistent and play at that level, and we certainly did it today.
“It's really difficult to do what we've done today against West Ham away and really pleased with the performance collectively and individually and obviously the score tells you the story of the game
“The level of purpose and determination that we showed, how much aggression and the courage that we had to put pressure on the ball all the time. You know they're going to go direct, how good we were in every duel and everybody was really, really alive to play every ball.”
Saka’s brace in this game took him up to 50 goals for the club and 100 goal involvements, at the age of just 22, and his penalty saw him avenge last season’s disappointment of missing from 12 yards at the same ground.
The England man continues to dazzle in red and white, and when asked just how good he could be, the boss admitted the sky is the limit.
“Physically, it's tough, but he can only get better because he wants more,” he said. “And today what he's done with the penalty as well shows that he wants to learn from a situation and make it right and that shows a lot of personality.”
“The consistent level that he's showing at his age, especially in the position that he plays in to deliver those numbers, and not only that, the consistency and availability that he has to play the way we play, which is really demanding.”
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
