Mikel Arteta admits that he is feeling “inspired” ahead of our first trip to Kenilworth Road since 1991 to take on Luton Town on Tuesday night.
Just 16 miles separate our training ground from the home of the Hatters, but the short journey is one we haven’t made for nearly 32 years - indeed none of the starting line-up from Saturday’s win at Wolves were born when Mick Harford nabbed the winning goal for the hosts in our last meeting.
However the boss is excited by the prospect of playing at a new - albeit distinctively traditional - ground as we aim to string together a sixth-straight win and move five points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Assessing what it’ll be like to play at The Kenny, Mikel said: “I would say it is an inspiring place. I think what [Luton] have done is remarkable with what Rob did with the team last year, the way they did it and what they transmitted as a team.
“To play there is going to be something different, and we’ve already discussed that with the players, but it’s really positive too. That’s the tradition of English football, our league - they haven’t been in the league for a long, long time and I think Arsenal hasn’t played them against them for a long, long time, so it’s a good evening.
“We have already warned the players, they know what to expect. They know about the atmosphere. They know everything, and especially they have to know about the team that they have to face tomorrow and the difficulties we are going to have playing against them, as well the opportunities for us to win the game.”
Since we last met in 1991, Luton dropped into non-league football for five seasons before working their way back up to the top-flight, courtesy of their Championship play-off final success over Sheffield Wednesday in May.
Their tale of falling only to rise again resonates with Mikel who feels it brings hope to all clubs in the English pyramid that they too can reach the pinnacle one day, but he also feels that having seen Rob Edwards’ team in the Premier League, they more than merit their spot at this level.
“It’s incredible the way Luton have done it, the frustrations they had it’s an example to any club in the Premier League,” Mikel added. “It gives hope as well that any club is able to do something extraordinary like this. It’s a beautiful story.
“They fully deserve all the credit they are getting, from last year as well as the way they are playing this season. Some of the results that they have got and in the games that they've played, they’ve been extremely close.
“I think they are a really good team and probably the table does not reflect what they have done in many games -the way they have lost games or drawn games as well in five minutes during the final stages of games. As I say, it probably doesn’t reflect that, but it’s a difficult game, that’s for sure.”
Arteta and Edwards go way back, having been in the same coaching classes organised by the Football Association of Wales as they studied for their UEFA Pro Licences, and there is a genuine friendship between the two.
“He's a great coach and a really special person as well,” Mikel said. “You can tell the way he coaches his team and the way his team behaves and I’m very happy for him and what he’s doing. We’ve stayed in touch because he was at Watford not long ago so we’ve been pretty close.”
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.
