A buzzing Mikel Arteta was swiftly inside the Emirates Stadium press room following our 4-1 victory against Newcastle United to tackle questions about the game.
He spoke about the performance of man of the match Jorginho, how we managed to bounce back from European outings and our goalscoring spree.
Here is everything he had to say:
on our response to the last meeting at St James’ Park:
I think we had a great performance, big credit to the boys after just half a day to prepare for the game. The way they executed everything - the intensity, the commitment, the determination, the aggression and progression in everything that we were doing with the ball. They played with a lot of courage against the team and we got rewarded. I think we fully deserved to win the game.
on whether Nicolas Jover is on a good bonus after more goals from set-pieces:
That’s for the owner to respond! The fact that we are scoring goals in various ways, from various players as well, is really satisfying. We could’ve scored many more today and we have to continue to do that, and keep developing all the things we can still do better and something we have to improve obviously, and get players back which as well we are doing right now. That’s going to be really important.
on Jorginho’s role in the big matches:
He’s a top player, especially when the opponents have certain behaviours or certain set-up. The way I can imagine the game, he is going to have a big impact, but I think you have to do it at this level and when he’s not playing consistently, credit to him because he was magnificent today, again.
on Jorginho and other players hitting their peak right now:
He is certainly [world class] but I think individually today we were outstanding in the way we played and we raised the bar again. Newcastle are a top side, they are really well-coached and it’s very difficult to do what we’ve done today, to have them in the positions and to make them suffer like we’ve done, so credit to the boys
on a 21-game unbeaten run in the Premier League after coming back from a European game:
Thanks for the stat because I didn’t know it. It shows how much we want it, and credit to the staff as well for making all the effort to recover the players. I could sense from the moment that we were in Porto that we were ready for the game, we wanted the game the next day, because there was something we could’ve done much better there. It’s great to see that reaction, it’s great to see the support from the stadium and we go again.
on what has clicked to help produce a large output of goals:
The team is hitting form, we are in a good moment, the players individually are performing. It’s not any secret things are flowing at the moment, we are scoring goals in various ways, and we want more. We score one and we want to go for the second and third and the fourth one and I love that mentality from the team
on the difference in mentality that helps finish games off:
We have to do that, because we won a lot of games last year, and this year when we deserved more and we generated more, I think today it could’ve been much more as well, but we have to demand ourselves that.
on what is key to maintaining the current form:
Maybe we train every day in the best possible way, look after ourselves and first of all believe that you can do it. You can always improve, you can always get better and have players back, the more players we have back, more competition within the team, more alternatives, more players to impact the game and especially believe that we can do it.
on the comparison between Wednesday and tonight in our maturity:
This is normally described like this because of the result. If Martinelli puts that ball through to Bukayo and Bukayo scores, what happens? This is football, you give it away and he puts it in one corner and then we have to manage the game better. It wasn’t that, we had a lot of courage to defend the way we did because we were incredibly good again against Porto, but we didn’t have enough courage to do what we’ve done today with the ball and that was the disappointing thing.
on tonight’s atmosphere at Emirates Stadium:
Really impressive, thank you so much to everybody that turned that around with that attitude and that energy. Thanks for the club as well because it’s pushing that to generate as well this atmosphere at home and it makes a huge impact on the team, so thank you.
on what his role is in creating the atmosphere:
We want the best club in the world, and to be the best club in the world we have to have the best stadium and best atmosphere in the world, that’s for sure.
on the reaction to the midweek result against Porto:
The character, the personality and the fact that the team always wants more. In sport things happen for a reason and you have to learn from that. If you feel sorry for yourself from three days ago, what is it? It’s a learning - we do that and we cannot cry because of the result. We have to understand why that happened and be better, and that was the energy and it was in the back of the players and they have done it.
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