With a huge game against Aston Villa sandwiched between the two legs of our Champions League quarter-final battle with Bayern Munich, Mikel Arteta is relishing his team fighting for the two biggest pieces of silverware.
After a 2-2 draw against the German giants on Tuesday, we switch our focus back to domestic matters when the fifth-placed Villans with Champions League ambitions of their own head to north London, as we aim to make it 11 wins from our last 12 league matches to remain on top of the league.
Then attentions will swiftly switch back to European action with a trip to Munich next week, and while Mikel admits that the next fortnight will be pivotal in our quest to win something this term, he cannot afford himself to look any further than a day ahead during the most relentless period of the season.
On how big the next few games will be, he suggested: “Very, for sure, because we can be in all competitions, going into the semi-finals of the Champions League and be top of the Premier League, or not. Every game is going to define what our future looks like.
“It is the only thing possible to look at one day and one game. It is the only thing that is possible because it's the only thing that maintains your focus and determines the tasks that you have to do on the day, which is the only thing that you can control.
“It’s the job that we live. 15 minutes [after] we finished against Luton, I was watching Brighton in my office in the stadium. It’s like this because you don’t have time. You have to prepare and you’re onto the next one.”
With both Manchester City and Liverpool in action before we take to the field against Villa on Sunday afternoon, we’ll know exactly what result we’ll require to return to the league’s summit, or potentially extend our advantage at the top.
However Mikel is again only concerned with what is actually in our hands, and do our job by winning the match and seeing where it leaves us come full-time.
Evaluating whether it is better to play before or after our rivals, he said: “We will know the results but we’ll still have our duty to win our game which is the only thing that we can control. That’s happened a few times already and it’s going to happen again in the next few weeks, so we’ll just focus on what we can do.
“It's the most beautiful part of the season coming up right now and a very busy schedule. We’re going to have a really tough [game] against a really good side, and are we going to have to be really good to beat them.”
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