Club captain Martin Odegaard lent his captain’s armband to Oleksandr Zinchenko for our win at Leicester on Saturday, on the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
After the game Mikel Arteta explained that the decision was led by the players themselves, to show unity with our Ukrainian defender.
“It was great because it was an initiative from the players,” the boss explained. “Martin came to me yesterday and they wanted to have that gesture with him.
“Today we wanted to win for him, for his loved ones, and for all the Ukrainian people that I think has inspired the world with that fighting spirit and with the togetherness they showed as a country.
“If we can add some happiness today to them and reflecting on who Alex is for us, it was a good opportunity, so I’m delighted to dedicate that win to them.”
And the manager was thrilled by the manner of victory as well, believing the winning margin should have been even greater.
“We had a really strong performance, to do what we have done to this team in this stadium, big credit to the players, because it’s not easy,
“I don’t think we conceded anything, just one shot off target at the end, we dominated the game from start to finish.
“We generated a lot of situations, some big chances, we should generate much more to win the game more comfortably, when the game got to the stage where now what we do we do? We handled it with a real composure and maturity and nothing else happened.”
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