Interview

Arteta - Hard work created Auba's goals

Mikel Arteta believes Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's three goals against Leeds were a consequence of his captain's hard week - both in training lately, and on the pitch on Sunday.

Auba netted his first ever Premier League hat-trick in our 4-2 win, on his first start for nearly a month, and Arteta was delighted to see his striker back in red hot form.

 

The boss spoke to Arsenal Media after the game, here's a full transcript of the interview…

 

Mikel, there was plenty of action, but you must be delighted with the result?

Yeah I'm really happy because in my opinion they are one of the best teams in the league, one of the hardest to play against and prepare things against. I think we did really, really well.  A lot of the things we worked on actually happened in the game. The application and the desire that the boys showed from the first minute after two difficult defeats to digest was great. This is what we have to do. If we keep playing the way we're playing we can only improve as a team. There are a lot of things we can do better, but overall, against this opponent, to do what we've done, the boys deserve some credit.

 

We've struggled for goals a bit in the last few games, will scoring four today be a real confidence lifter for the team?

Hopefully. We've been working on it and demanding on being more ruthless and more composed in the box. Sometimes we hurry things up and today we were much better. We scored some really good goals and created a lot of goalscoring situations. We want to play a type of football where we can create many goals every game.

 

A word for your captain, back in the starting line-up and back with a hat-trick...

I'm so pleased for him. The way he's trained this week, he totally deserved it. It's a consequence of how he prepared this week. I think his goals are a consequence of how he worked today without the ball - the rhythm of his pressing, how he was putting people under pressure all the time. He was the first to dictate the rhythm of our defensive face. Overall I'm really happy to have him back.

 

Did the team slightly take the foot off the gas at 4-0?

No, at half-time I told them this is a team that can come back. They are not going to give up and they are going to maintain their level or increase their level. That's going to be Leeds. It's what they have done. They threw everything at us. They played 2-1-7 sometimes and they tried. We gave them some hope with a set piece that we didn't defend well enough and after it's true that we also created three or four big chances to score more.

 

Finally, back into Europe next week with two games against Benfica in neutral territory - what's that going to be like?

I don't know! We have never experienced anything like that. We will travel there and start to prepare the game against them. They are a really good side as well. We will get everybody back, recovered, because it's been a really physical game tonight, and let's see what we do.