Mikel Arteta spoke about the desire to create magic moments on the pitch following this month’s 2-0 win at home to Manchester United.
Now, with Wednesday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final with Crystal Palace fast approaching, our manager wants more of the same, but not just by way of goals.
“A magic moment is not only just to score a goal,” he explained in his pre-match press conference on Tuesday. “A magic moment can be Gabriel last year against Manchester United when he plays the striker offside for millimetres. That’s a magic moment as well in my opinion.
“It doesn’t only have to be scoring a goal, but we have players that are capable of doing it.
“Doing it every three days, that’s when you become a world class player, a player that wins games with individual actions and we’re trying to develop our players to have more of that because that would be another source of winning games.”
Asked how much the ability to decide a game with a magic moment as a player is down to their mentality, Mikel said it’s incredible important.
“A lot. Actually, making it happen and believing it can happen again, creating the fear in the opposition that a player or two can deliver that.
“A player can became, it’s easy to say predictable, [but just because] I know what he’s going to do, actually stopping what he’s going to do is something else.”
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