Arteta - We are showing our bite

At the end of a tough week, including the disappoiontment of a controversial defeat away to Newcastle, and a Champions League win over Sevilla on Wednesday night, Mikel Arteta's men found the resources to secure a well-deserved victory over Burnley. 

Leandro Trossard put us ahead late in the first half, only for the visitors to equalise shortly afterwards. We stormed back though with goals from William Saliba and Oleksandr Zinchenko to take all three points, despite playing with ten men for the last ten minutes or so. 

"The level and the consistency the team is showing, how we are playing, how the team is competing, we are always there," the boss said afterwards. "The team is showing real maturity as well as a lot of hunger to be there and show a bit of bite and teeth in the right moments, and today we’ve done that really well I think.

"I’m really pleased with the performance. The way the team played, how much we generated, the approach we had from the beginning. We talked about it last night, that it was going to be tough. We’ve played a lot of games, a lot of minutes and this was going to be something very different to the last two games, and the team was really mature. Patient, but with the right aggression as well, and I think we fully deserved to win the game."

Saliba's headed goal came just three minutes after Burnley hauled themselves level, and Arteta believes the timing of our go-ahead strike was vital. 

"The timing was crucial because the fear today was after 60, 65 minutes (if) we have to change the game, with the options that we had, especially with the injuries that we have, it was going to be more complicated to restore the energy level and find all the solutions, so the timing was very important for us to win the game."

The manager, who himself scored our 500th goal at the Emirates back in 2014, also praised Leandro Trossard's courage in netting the opening goal - the 1,000th we've netted at the stadium. 

"It was an important one, and it was a really brave one because he put his body on the line to score it. He’s going to be next to that beautiful number so well done to him."