Declan Rice has hailed the impact of Mikel Arteta on the touchline as we defeated Liverpool 3-1 at Emirates Stadium.
Goals from Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard were enough to move the Gunners into second place in the Premier League table.
Rice played the full 90 minutes and the midfielder revealed Arteta’s passion helped us get over the line in a high-energy encounter.
“He’s our manager, he lives on the pitch with us,” Rice said after the game. “He lives every ball with us and when you have that and you see what he transmits from the sidelines to the pitch, it gives you so much confidence as a player.
“We’re really grateful we have him as our manager.”
After a dominant first half in which Saka slotted home after 14 minutes, we went in level at the break after a Gabriel own goal.
Rice praised the character within the dressing room at the interval, allowing us to push on in the second half.
“We’ve got some great characters in the team who were pushing on, driving on at half time that it wasn’t a moment to let our heads drop.
“We couldn’t let one moment of a lack in concentration affect what we’d done for that 45.
“We knew in the second half it was going to be a tough game but, in the end, we gave it everything and we got the three points which was massive for us.
“These are the moments we live for in football and I’m just so happy we could win the match, it was massive from start to the end and to get three points, with that energy from the crowd, was just unbelievable."
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