Another start, and another goal for Eddie Nketiah.
The England Under-21 international was on target as we sealed our place in the quarter-finals of the Emirates FA Cup with a 2-0 win at Portsmouth on Monday night.
Afterwards, he spoke to the media and this is what he said:
on the maturity of the performance...
I think they made it hard for us, they came out very fast and we all reacted well, we all did well at the end to come away with a 2-0 result against a good side, a great team. I think all the young boys that played, the senior boys, did really well. Everyone's performance was really important.
on how much the competition means to the young players...
It's great. It's an opportunity for us and we take all competitions very seriously. The manager wants us to do our best to get to the final. Obviously ay the moment we're giving away a few chances, we want to take them all. We want to go as far as we can.
on his own contribution to the team...
It's great to be back at Arsenal, my dream club. It's nice to be doing well, scoring for the team. I'm picking up a bit of form and I want to continue that. For me it's not just about the goals, it's about my overall play and I was happy with my performance today. Pressing and working hard, that's what it's about. It's great to play with such good team-mates who are always encouraging and pushing us on. We want to keep this momentum going and try to build a bit of a run going.
on Fratton Park...
The crowd are good here, it's a great atmosphere and obviously it's a great experince to play here and we dealt with it well. We knew we were going to be in for a difficult game and I think everyone had the right mentality going into the game and it showed out there. Obviously the most important thing is to get the win and we're through to the next round.
on what Mikel said at half-time...
Just to keep going, he told us to up the tempo a bit and we knew that they might tire out a bit towards the end and the chance will come so we just wanted to be patient and play the passing game and be aggressive off the ball. We were a lot more aggressive in the second half, and that helped us control the game and get the chances.
on his England chances...
I don't want to get carried away with myself, just focus on doing well for Arsenal. I've got ambitions in the future to get to that level but now it's just about staying grounded, taking each game as it comes and that's what a lot of players and the senior players do. We've got a lot of people around us, our families, who keep us on the straight and narrow. It's just about improving each game and contributing when we're on the pitch and I think everyone's doing that at the moment.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
