Mikel Arteta Sends Confident Arsenal Message After Chelsea Win
Mikel Arteta lauded Arsenal’s players for showing ‘fire in the belly’ during Tuesday night’s convincing 3-1 win over Chelsea.
The Gunners had gone four games without a win to surrender the lead in the Premier League title race to Manchester City, with a 4-1 defeat at the Etihad Stadium particularly damaging to the club’s cause.
But backed by a capacity crowd at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal responded with a brilliant first half showing against struggling rivals Chelsea, scoring three times before the break to further the misery of Frank Lampard’s side.
Noni Madueke reduced the deficit despite further Arsenal pressure after the break, and Arteta was impressed with the mentality shown by his players.
“We wanted to have a very different approach to the game, and we did it right from the beginning,” the Spaniard reflected.
“The team is back to its best. There was a lot of energy, determination, quality, movement, and we were really going for it. We connected with our crowd straight away, we scored two magnificent goals, got control of the game and fully deserved to win.
“We wanted to prove we had that fire in the belly. I could see that in the last few days, and we prepared the game well. Mentally we arrived in the right mood and with the right level of energy. Everything went for us as well, which is important.
“We’ve had a couple of difficult weeks with very different games with a lot of emotions involved. Today we’re back to the top of the league – let’s see what happens.”
Martin Odegaard’s brace of goals set Arsenal on their way in north London, but the Norwegian’s dynamic performance is just the tip of the iceberg as far as Arteta is concerned.
“When you have a player of his quality and his eagerness to learn every single day, he accepts that there are areas he can still improve a lot.
“He is constantly working on them, and in the end you get rewarded. That’s credit to him.”
Arsenal’s Premier League title fate will be decided by how Manchester City get on in their final six games.
The Gunners can reach a maximum of 90 points if they win all of their remaining fixtures – Newcastle, Brighton, Nottingham Forest and Wolves – but City have the ability to reach 94 because they currently trail by two points with two games in hand.
Crucially, City have hit their stride at the right time of the season – something that Pep Guardiola sides always seem to do – although they do have the distraction of trying to win a first Champions League crown; Real Madrid stand in their way in the semi-finals.
