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Shortly after touching down in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on Monday evening, Mikel Arteta met the media ahead of our Champions League quarter-final first leg clash with Sporting CP. <\/p>\n
The boss was asked about bouncing back from defeat, the state of his squad, Viktor Gyokeres facing his former team, and much more. <\/p>\n
Here’s a full transcript from the press conference…<\/p>\n
On what he\u2019s seen from the side since Saturday\u2026<\/strong> On whether it changes the importance of Tuesday\u2019s game\u2026<\/strong> On whether Gabriel, Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard are available…<\/strong> On Open Saka and Jurrien Timber.<\/strong> On what he sees from his group\u2026<\/strong> On whether the team will be fired up to being questioned\u2026<\/strong> On Viktor Gyokeres facing his former club\u2026<\/strong> On whether he has noticed a difference in Gyokeres after scoring for Sweden\u2026<\/strong> On the challenge Sporting present\u2026<\/strong> On what the new players offer in terms of freshness\u2026<\/strong> On whether he has any concerns about his players\u2019 emotions\u2026<\/strong> On what he means by identity\u2026<\/strong> On avoiding panic\u2026<\/strong> On how he feels positive after the two defeats\u2026<\/strong> On rediscovering the identity\u2026<\/strong> On today\u2019s training session\u2026<\/strong> On what that meant\u2026<\/strong> On when he started noticing Viktor Gyokeres\u2026<\/strong> On if he is where he thought Gyokeres would be in his first season\u2026<\/strong> On whether he has spoken to Gyokeres about Sporting\u2026<\/strong> On what the differences are between Sporting this season and last season\u2026<\/strong> On Sporting manager Rui Borges\u2026<\/strong> On Sporting\u2019s adaptability\u2026<\/strong> Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shortly after touching down in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on Monday evening, Mikel Arteta met the media ahead of our Champions League quarter-final first leg clash with Sporting CP. The … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Have some perspective, how difficult it is, what we’ve done up to now. And then feel that pain, feel that emotion, and use it to be better and to improve. So we were very clear in what happened, the reason why it happened, watching the game two times, we didn’t deserve to lose that much, but this is football and we get punished for things that are related to our identity, and that’s the things that we need to defend in the strongest possible way, because that’s the reason that we are where we are today.<\/p>\n
I think it doesn’t change it, I mean, regardless this is the quarter-finals of the Champions League, it doesn’t get much better than that, and we worked so hard throughout the season to be in this position in the competition. We’re going to play an opponent here that we know about, their record and what they\u2019ve done. So we are hungrier than ever, very excited and very, very motivated for tomorrow’s game.<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
No, they’re having trouble, they’re not ready yet. Let’s see, hopefully they’re going to be ready for the weekend, if everything goes well, and that’s a massive boost because in recent days we’ve lost so many important players and that’s something that we need to change immediately.<\/p>\n
A lot of things. The way they communicate, the way they express their feelings, the conversation that obviously we had after that match. I know what it means to them and I know how much they want it and it’s now the moment to show it and we have to do it on that green tomorrow at the highest level.<\/p>\n
That’s in football, from the first game of the season, that’s going to be questioned: What about Arsenal this season? It’s been like this for the last nine months and that’s going to continue, that’s never going to change when you play at this level for this club. There’s always going to be a question mark and that’s it. You have to live the present, you have to deliver it every day. You cannot pick the games, you cannot pick the moments or the actions. It’s every action, every game, every moment. That’s the standard that we set and that’s part of identity and it’s part of this football club.<\/p>\n
I think he’s very excited. Obviously, he’s full of gratitude for his time here. The way he talks about the club, the players, the staff, everybody around the club. The experience that he had, how important that part of his journey in Sporting has been. And now it’s Arsenal, it’s a quarter-final of the Champions League, he’s never played at this level in the competition and obviously you can imagine what it means to him.<\/p>\n
Those are experiences that you put in your veins, I would say. It doesn’t get much better than putting your country into a World Cup with a goal that you scored. That’s still there and that’s going to be there for the rest of his career, like all the moments that he had here, the moments that he’s creating for us. That’s the story that he’s creating and hopefully tomorrow he’s going to show another very good side of him.<\/p>\n
Before we played them as well, when you look at what they’ve done, especially at home, the way they have behaved in this Champions League, the teams that they have beaten, we know the difficulty of the match. That’s why we want it even more.<\/p>\n
I think it’s a very good mixture because we had a really good campaign last year in the Champions League and we came into this position when we played Real Madrid as well and we managed to get into the semi-final. So that experience, those feelings are there. Tomorrow is going to be a very different game. We know the difficulty of that, but obviously we know what is at stake and what we have to do.<\/p>\n
No. I think when you have the opportunity that we have, that has to be taken through excitement, through preparing yourself in the best possible way to focus on the present and the things that we have to do. And especially in our identity, very clear what is taking us on the way to where we are. That’s where we have to focus.<\/p>\n
Everything. It’s not philosophical. There are parts and identities created by behaviours, not with words in the world or with things that I want to achieve. We have so many facts in the areas that, in our opinion, make us the team and the club that we are.<\/p>\n
I think what we have to be is clear. Instead of panic, understand if that happens, why it happened and bring clarity and when you analyse that and you accept that, be better. That’s it. And that’s the thing that we have to do.<\/p>\n
First of all, analysing what I’ve done, the decisions that I’ve made, the reason why we lost, what I would have done differently if I had to play that game again or make that selection again or send them certain messages. That’s the first thing.\u00a0And then understand what the players need in this moment and what kind of manager or what kind of message is the best one to perform and to be better the next day. And that’s my only focus about me. It’s about them and trying to help.\u00a0That’s my job and I’m focused on that. <\/p>\n
There are a few things that we have discussed internally and hopefully\u2026 not hopefully, I’m very convinced that tomorrow we’re going to see them.<\/p>\n
I think a training session has to have different elements and it has to be related to the messages that we send and the compromises and commitments that we’ve done between us. I try to have all those messages and commitments as much as possible in as many situations as possible and training was one of them.<\/p>\n
That stays in the dressing room.<\/p>\n
Well, he’s been on our radar for years but the most recent moment when we really looked at it as one of the top targets was around December of last year, when we started to really think about, especially with the issue that we have with Kai, what we have to do in our front line and he became one of the main candidates and then the main candidate to be part of our club.<\/p>\n
I think it’s where he is and how successful this season is going to be for us and when we analyse his season, it’s going to be defined in the last seven or eight weeks of the season, that’s clear.<\/p>\n
Of course I did, just to understand the dynamics, the culture here, the things that they have talked about, the things that they have obviously discussed when they play against us. And to have more information about them that we can use in our favour.\u00a0A lot of qualities, obviously what they’re doing is remarkable. The record that they have at home is just incredible. So you need to be very good to maintain that level of performance and consistency.<\/p>\n
Every moment of a team is different, obviously they’re in a high moment, especially the way they got into the quarter-finals and the game they played, for example, here against Paris or the recent form in the league. That’s it, at the moment the whistle goes, it’s a game, it’s a game that’s going to have different kind of moments and it’s how we’re going to master those moments to take the game where we want and win it.<\/p>\n
Every coach has his own thing. I think he’s connected with the team and the club in a really powerful way and doing a great job.<\/p>\n
Well, a lot because that’s the reason why they are there. They have a lot of quality, as you say, a lot of variability within the spaces that a lot of players can occupy in the attacking phase and then they can unbalance the game because they have individual quality and you haven\u2019t mentioned some others as well that they have the capacity to do that. Obviously, the phase of play when those players get in those positions starts earlier normally.\u00a0So the problem starts earlier than sometimes in this moment it’s too late to give the solution. That’s what we’re trying to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n