Interview

Arteta - We have made another step forward

It wasn't a win but Mikel Arteta was still encouraged by what he saw during Saturday's draw with Crystal Palace.

The result means we've still only lost one game under our new head coach, and the 37-year-old has taken plenty of positives from our performance.

"A lot of things I saw against Palace show we have made another step forward, 100 per cent," our head coach told Arsenal Player.

"They are taking all the ideas on board and they are willing to do it. You could see how they were fighting, how they were going about their jobs and the intensity they were playing with. I'm very pleased with many things.

"We had a terrific 30 or 35 minutes in the first half where we completely dominated the game. I saw everything I want to see from this Arsenal team. Afterwards we had 10 minutes where we had a more difficult spell of giving free-kicks away, a little bit similar to the first 10 or 15 minutes in the second half.

"We conceded a goal in a very disappointing way. We reacted really, really well after that. Then we had Auba's red card but again the team was terrific to react the way they did. They wanted to win the game, we committed the opponent to defend their own box a few times and had the best chance to win the game."