Arteta pleased his alterations had desired effect

Mikel Arteta was thrilled that the five changes he made to the team had the desired effect as we ran out comfortable 2-0 winners against Luton Town.

It was the most switches the boss has made between Premier League games since September 2021, but Reiss Nelson, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Thomas Partey, Leandro Trossard and man of the match Emile Smith Rowe all performed excellently to help us to a ninth league win in 10.

And Mikel was delighted that as well as getting the three points, he managed to hand out minutes to members of his squad who were lacking in them, boosting their fitness and confidence levels at the start of a month that includes eight massive matches.

On his reasoning for the alterations, he said: “We made five changes for players that fully deserved to play, because they give me the right reasons every day to do so. They have to be used and I think they had a really good impact on the team.

“Emile had an impact for sure, and Reiss as well. Alex had some really good moments, Thomas had his first start since August, that is unbelievable. Leo comes into the team and he makes an impact. It’s really important because now they’re physically better, mentally better, they are confident and they are ready to go.

“There are always questions if it’s only half of the team and in the end, we’ll be judged on what we do and whether it’s right or wrong because of the result. We should not do that, we should do it because they fully deserve it regardless of if we win, draw or lose. Today they gave us a reason that we have to trust them.

“They started really strong, generated a lot of momentum in the first half and some big chances, and scored two great goals. In the second half, we lacked a little bit more composure and simplicity in our play to be more dominant and avoid those transitions, but overall, we made the changes, we won the game, clean sheet and we go again.”

Another reason for Mikel to be happy post-match was our defensive solidity that ground out another clean sheet.

That’s now five recorded in our last seven Premier League games, and 13 for the season in the competition, more than any other team. It’s something that has gone under the radar, but Mikel is proud of those statistics, which he hopes to add to against Brighton on Saturday.

“It gives you the foundation to win football matches,” he added. “It gives you a lot of confidence and belief that you can beat any team and they know the importance of it, how they work. It’s unbelievable without the ball and let’s keep doing it.

“We’ll recover a little bit, then it’s time to plan. We go to Brighton and we know how difficult that’s going to be and that’s it, we focus on that. That’s the task now.”