ARSENAL manager Mikel Arteta believes his side can push themselves to get a result against Manchester City.
The Gunners will be looking for their first Premier League points when they face the champions at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
Arteta’s side lost their first two league fixtures to Brentford and Chelsea but bounced back in grand style with a 6-0 drubbing of West Brom in the second round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.
“As I said yesterday, after losing you want to win straight away. It lifts the confidence, the mood, and this is what we’re here for,” Arteta said during his press conference on Thursday, referring to the West Brom win.
“It was a big performance last night and we’re through in the cup and our focus again in two days is travelling to Manchester to face the champions. We have to be at our best.”
Arteta then went into detail about how his team can beat the champions on their own patch.
“It’s the level that they read the game and the level that you have to be mentally ready for, to run for long periods of the game without touching the ball to sacrifice and being prepared to suffer in the right moments,” he explained.
“But as well, having the conviction that we’re going to have moments in the game and when those opportunities arise, we will have to take them and that’s how I want to see the team. They are fully committed, fully prepared, and they believe that we can go to Manchester and get the result that we want.
“It will be great. It will be a massive lift to go up to Manchester, against the champions, and get the win. It will change the narrative a lot. It will help us in the table for sure because we need the points. That will be the game to take them.”
Some of the Arsenal players are returning to the squad after injuries, including Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who scored a hat-trick on Wednesday night, and Alexandre Lacazette.
Arteta is understandably delighted that they can help his squad improve.
He said: “Well, getting some of those big players back certainly helps for any team. For example with Auba and Laca, they are our goalscorers, they’re the biggest threats in the team in terms of scoring that comes from them and that’s something that’s happened over the years so we know how crucial that is for us our success.
“Then you have someone like Martin (Odegaard) who we just recruited permanently as well and his quality to help and many others that are still not in contention yet, but they will be back to join the team soon hopefully.”
The Spaniard revealed that £50m signing Ben White is still not recovered enough from Covid-19 to feature on Saturday and hinted that the club might not be adding more players before the end of the current transfer window on 31 August.
“We already have done a lot of things – ins and outs,” he noted. “A lot. I think it’s 16 or 17 deals in total with some renewals which is a lot of things and there are still some things to do in the last few days because there are still some questions marks and deals that can happen. But we’ll see.”
When asked about the Premier League clubs’ joint decision not to release players to red list countries for World Cup qualifiers, Arteta replied: “It’s not in our hands. We had a really strong opinion on what we have to do and the protection we want from the Premier League and the Government to be aligned, because we are playing worldwide and our players are international and they have their duties, we have our duties, so the biggest and easiest thing to do is that they get aligned and common sense comes on the table and nobody gets affected with it.”
Arteta is going up against his former boss at Manchester City Pep Guardiola, and he declared self-belief as one of the lessons he learnt from his compatriot.
“First of all, that you have to believe in what you do and in any difficult moment you stick to what you do and the whole team, the whole club sticks to what we believe and all decisions I’m making all the time in that direction,” he said.
When Arteta was asked if Manchester City might make a bid for Aubameyang after failing with Harry Kane, he replied: “I don’t know. He is our player and he will remain here.”
