Mikel Arteta has praised his squad’s desire to fulfil the leadership role lost due to Martin Odegaard’s injury to help get us through an incredibly tough hat-trick of away games.
Our skipper was injured on international duty just before a run of matches that brought the north London derby, our Champions League opener and a fixture against the reigning champions, but we rallied to get credible results at the homes of Tottenham Hotspur, Atalanta and Manchester City without our leader.
And Mikel admits that our haul of four league points and a credible draw against the Europa League holders would have been something he would have been happy with had he known the cards he would be dealt going into those games, and is delighted to see so many players step up in Martin’s absence.
“If you put me in this scenario before I started this season with the calendar that we were given, the fixtures that we had, the three away games that we had and the amount of injuries that we had to deal with and how we got out of that, I would be very, very pleased,” he said in his pre-Leicester press conference.
“It’s not just Martin, obviously he’s one of our best players and a player that has more impact on the team in many ways, but there were many others as well and the team has coped extremely well because we have an exceptional group.
“A lot of players have taken a different role in the leadership, in their importance in the team and they embrace that challenge. I'm really happy for that.”
As well as extending our unbeaten run to 13 matches without Martin skippering the side, we have also done it without his talent. Having been such a mainstay in the middle of the park over the past few seasons, Mikel admits that we’ve had to change the way we play without him him pulling the strings.
And he hopes that we can once again find a way to win against Leicester City on Saturday to keep us ticking over until he Norwegian is back and donning the armband once again.
“We have to adapt,” he added. “Obviously the influence that Martin had in our attacking phase is enormous, we cannot question that. When you look at every metric, the way we plan the games to try to do things to get him in the spaces where he can be very dangerous for the opponent is key. It’s always in relation to him basically.
“We don’t have it so we have to adapt our way of playing and find other ways to do it that are very efficient. It won’t be the same. It will be different, but hopefully very efficient as well.”
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