Mikel Arteta and Arsenal continued their impressive streak this weekend as they beat Leicester 4-2. The Gunners remain second in the Premier League and have closed the gap on the league leaders to one point.
The win against Leicester continues a run of incredible results for the gunners; over the past week, Arsenal have beaten Tottenham and drawn games against Atalanta and Manchester City. Mikel Arteta rested most of the team, and started four academy players last week and still won 5-1 against Bolton in the EFL Cup.
Going through all those games without losing is a sign to how much the team have improved. Arteta has already mentioned this season that the mentality at the club will see them get results this campaign. This is what the Spaniard said after beating Spurs 1-0 away from home with key players injured:
“We had to adapt a little bit because of some of the players we lost,” Arteta said.
“I prepared for Tottenham for five days, then in one moment I lost one player and in another I lost another. I didn’t sleep much!
“There were no excuses, no crying. The players have thick skin. They love the game. Sometimes to win you have to do the ugly things and they love to do that.
“I loved it, because day after day the players are hungrier and hungrier.”
Mikel Arteta wants Arsenal mentality to continue
After getting results against Atalanta and Manchester City; the opponents had words to say about Arsenal and their style of football. Atalanta head coach Gian Piero Gasperini and Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva all complained about Arsenal playing “anti-football”.
Mikel Arteta brushed off those comments and praised his team for finding ways to get a result. After the Leicester game, he praised the gunners for performing in difficult situations:
“Great. How we handled the situation, we felt it should have been many more and it wasn’t and suddenly it is 2-2 but we had to deal with a very good team with difficult circumstances and we stayed really composed. We had a lot of clarity, understanding what we had to do and we kept doing what we had to do and we earned the right to win it. James Justin scored an unbelievable, world class goal.”
Arsenal had to score two late goals to beat the Foxes 4-2, after they threw away a two-goal lead in the match. Mikel Arteta says he was happy with the two late goals, but did not like how they dropped the two goal lead:
“Now we are really happy but we could have been in a very different position because of the two goals we conceded but certainty with the performance we have to be super happy.”
