Mikel Arteta thanked our supporters for heeding his call to make Emirates Stadium as noisy as possible and help drive our players on to a 4-1 success against Newcastle United.
For the third league game in succession, we netted a hatful of goals, with an own goal followed by strikes from Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka and Jakub Kiwior seeing off the challenge of the Magpies and keeping us within striking distance of the league leaders.
But the boss felt that it wouldn't have been possible without the backing of the home crowd who greeted the players at the start of the game with a wall of noise and kept the levels up to roar our players onto a sixth successive Premier League victory.
Mikel was keen to highlight the contribution from the stands post-match, saying: “They were incredible - thank you so much. It makes such a difference. The choreography from the beginning, the colour, the intensity, the energy, you really transformed the team.
“It's not a coincidence the team plays that way when they are hyped like this, so thank you so much.”
We bounced back from the setback of conceding late on in Porto to lose for the first time in 2024, but our Premier League form continued with another dazzling display to return to form.
The win means we are now unbeaten in 21 league matches following a European match stretching back to 2021 - a stat the boss was taken aback by when it was revealed to him.
However he feels that the hard work behind the scenes is showing the benefits, as well as the desire of the players to put things right having been left frustrated by events at St James’ Park back in November.
“After a day of preparation against Newcastle - a top team, top players, and top coaches - to play the way we've done with that termination, aggression and quality for the whole game, it was really pleasing to see,” he added.
“I could see that we wanted it. We have to get used to playing in big Champions League games and then play two days later. If we have any questions, we can do it and now we're doing it consistently.
“[The stat] shows a lot of great work that all the staff does as well to help the players and our players are focused. Today is a story, it's a result - good, bad, you learn from it, you move on to the next one and you try to be better.
“It's really pleasing that we're scoring the amount of goals that we are, and the chances that we are generating as well from various plays in different ways.”
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