Press conference

Every word from Arteta's post-Burnley presser

Mikel Arteta

Mikel Arteta spoke to the media after our 3-1 victory over Burnley in the Premier League, as we put ourselves in a strong league position heading into the international break.

The boss was asked about Leandro Trossard's landmark goal, Oleksandr Zinchenko's performance and gave fitness updates on Ben White and Martin Odegaard.

Read every word from Mikel, below.

On the result and Vieira’s red card:

I’m really happy with the result, especially with the performance after playing 72 hours ago, with the last three games, how we played against Newcastle, how we played against Sevilla, how we played today, how dominant we were against teams who are very hard to dominant the amount of situations that we dominated, I think we fully deserved to win the game. With the red card, yes, thank you for asking me, VAR was right, the referee was right, really good decision, really positive from Mikel to speak about that, good decision.

On how important it is to maintain our momentum:

This is what this team does, we play in the best possible way, we give absolutely everything to win games, to earn it, when the opponent is better we just congratulate them, I think we’ve been better in the last three games than the opponent and we deserve to be in the position where we are, in a really strong position going into the international break, it gives us some momentum, we need to get players back because at the momentum we have eight players not available and that’s a lot, and in December we have 11 games coming up, so we better get everybody back quickly.

On Zinchenko’s performance:

I was very happy with him. Especially against these teams, the fluidity and threat he gives, the way he progresses the ball, the spaces that he occupies and gets avaliable for other players I think is critical. His defending part I really liked today, how committed he was in every defending action, the goal he scored is a really good example of how he’s living the game when the ball is far from him that’s why he’s first on the ball, that’s why he scores the goal, so that’s what we need from him.

On Trossard’s goal and it being our 1,000th at Emirates Stadium:

You have to put your body over the line if it’s necessary and he’s done it, and it’s the 1000th goal at Emirates Stadium, a beautiful number, so I’m very happy with him. I think every time you ask him to play, whether it’s wide or as a nine, it flows and he’s a real threat, so I’m really happy with him. 

On White’s fitness:

Yesterday in training he wasn’t comfortable, he didn’t look right, but Ben won’t give you much, he always wants to be on the pitch and always wants to hide anything that is in there, but we highlighted it, we noticed in the last few weeks as well something in there, and we wanted to protect him today. It was the right call from the physios and the medical department and tomorrow we will assess him and understand what’s happening.

On Trossard’s chemistry with his teammates:

That’s the word. I think that he connects everybody, you know. He’s so intelligent. He moves in the spaces in ways that attract people and generates spaces and options for people and today he has done it really well because it was very difficult as the spaces were so small to attack and he gave us a lot of threat and possibilities to connect and find spaces for us.

On Jorginho’s injury:

Well, he had a few bad cuts, I think, which they couldn’t sort out on the pitch so we decided to take him out but hopefully, he’s fine. I think he was really good again today. The way this guy is competing, coaching, and supporting the team in any way he can makes me really happy with him.

On Jorginho getting a recall to the Italy national team:

I’m very happy for any player that can represent his country and I know what Italy means for him. He was desperate to be involved and he fully deserves it, in my opinion.

On the determination Trossard showed:

Go and be consistent and go and go and try to force errors and force mistakes and take orders to go again and the team, I think, in the last two or three games, has been much more courageous in that sense and today, so many times in the final third, we sustained attacks in the spaces and it becomes really difficult for the opponent.

On scoring from two set-pieces and our physicality:

We have big lads. Willy [Saliba] has a real presence. He hasn’t yet shown this skill consistently. We are really working with him because he can be much more dominant and the goal today is a real example of the time [put in] so credit to all the coaches and him for the work that they are doing. We are the team that needs more set pieces as teams defend really low against us and really prevent spaces so it’s a good way for us to score goals as well.

On Odegaard’s fitness:

I don’t know. I’m going to have a meeting now with the medical department to understand everybody’s situation and I think he is going to be back after the International break but I don’t know exactly what the decision is and the communication at the moment.

On Tomiyasu’s performance and fitness:

Only in his eye. He had a problem with his lens but the rest, he was top. A really good performance.

On our position in the table going into the international break:

I’d prefer to be at the top but this is what we have to do and we have shown a lot of consistency both in the way that we are playing and competing and as well in terms of results so let’s carry on, we’ve got some momentum now and as I said, we’ve got some players back… Let’s go again.

On if he’s going away during the international break:

Sunshine I’m not sure as I’m probably going to stay in London so I doubt the sunshine but I’m sure I’ll have some really beautiful family time and friends and enjoy a few days off, for sure.