Every word Mikel Arteta said on Arsenal's nervy win over Wolves, injury blow, Jesus' impact

Every word from Mikel Arteta’s post-match press conference after Arsenal’s win over Wolves.

Mikel Arteta spoke to the press after Arsenal managed a dramatic late win over Wolves, which, in hindsight, could have been much worse. When Tolu Arokodare levelled in the 90th minute, the title race looked like it had taken its biggest twist.

However, the drama was not over, thankfully, as Bukayo Saka’s cross was challenged by Gabriel Jesus, but it was Mosquera whose head the ball came off and found the back of the net. A game which many will never want to speak of again, but will have plenty talking about for the week off.

Arteta was clear after the game that this was not the level that he or the team expects. However, he was still clear that the rest this week will bring will be important.

Here is every word the Arsenal manager said:

What's the mood in the dressing room now? Is it one of utter relief, one of jubilation?

It was a relief, but a very clear understanding that the margin should have been bigger, and after not being precise enough in the first half with the amount of situations that we generated inside the opposition box, and we didn't pick the right colour of shirt in so many occasions, we had an overload, clearly to do that. We had to improve in the second half in relation to that.

I think we did it, we generated more chances to score a goal, but after we had a period of two or three minutes in deep, totally passive, with horrible defensive habits, that is nowhere near the level that is required against a team that hasn't had a single shot, the first time that they had the opportunity to do it, they scored the goal, and this is the Premier League.

Unfortunately, we are relieved because we managed to score a goal at the end and go on winning, but we need to improve in that sense for sure.

There were times I think last season, the season before maybe, when you wouldn't have come back to win a game like that, the grit and determination you showed to come back as opposed to the late equaliser, is that the difference that makes a Premier League winner?

That's something very positive, but I don't put it down sometimes to, ‘Yeah, resilience and go up now!’ It's what happened before, we should have stopped the source before and that's on us. You have to give credit to Wolves and what they've done, I watched the game when they played Stamford Bridge, when they played against Villa and how unlucky they were not to get [anything], so I knew that that wasn't going to be an easy game at all.

But we made it even harder with what we did in the manner that we conceded the goal and that's unacceptable.

What do you do now with this week off to make sure you go to Everton and stay top of the table for Christmas?

Well, what we have to do now is reset, give them two days that they can decompress a little bit, and then we have a long week that we can prepare. When we don't train, there are things that slowly deteriorate and certain habits that start to deteriorate because you don't train them and use that opportunity to do so. Give everybody a boost because we know that the Christmas period is a lot of times undefined and we want to be on top of it.

I know there's always a lesson to be learned from every game, but is there ever a game like that where you just think, let's put that in a box, forget that ever happened and move on to the next one?

Learn from it and then move on. Yes, and every time you win the Premier League, you should be happy, and you should be conscious of the difficulty of it. But we made it even harder for ourselves today, and that's the big lesson that we have to do.

When the opponent merits something, that's fine and they did a lot of things to make it difficult for us, but as well the things that are on us, we should make sure that we improve them.

It's a natural thing for a team to want to protect their lead and get deeper and deeper, but how would you stop your side from doing that when the margins are so small, and there's so much on the line?

No, it's deeper, and then we have the ball in the hands of the keeper, and we don't play, we just kick it. This is on us, and we have to continue to play in the manner that we have to play. We can manage the result in a certain way, but it has to be in ourselves and we can defend it because they commit a lot of plays and there's a moment that you cannot press them, that's fine, but the level of activity in that block has to be very different to the one that we had.

You spoke about the dangerous cycle with injuries. Is Ben an example of that and how is he doing that? Does it look like a hamstring issue?

Exactly that. He hasn't played a lot of minutes because of the previous knee issue that he had. Then the moment he started to get some momentum, he had to play a lot because we didn't have any other solution.

We had to even risk today Willy because probably it wasn't their best goal to play 90 minutes because we were buying tickets for another injury, but we don't have anybody else. But yeah, that's Ben for sure.

What was the issue with Ben?

Looks like a hamstring, so we don't know the extent of that, but probably tomorrow or the day after we'll know more.

This is the first time this season that in the first half you failed to take shots on target? Obviously it's the worst team in the Premier League. How has that happened and are you not frustrated?

Well, because we didn't pick up the right colour of the shirt and when you have a free header one metre, normally we'll put the ball not on target and go. And we put it out and time and time and time again. It is frustrating, yeah, but this is the game.

But I expect to hit the right colour. You have to be wanting the back post to hit it every single time at this level. And today we haven't done it, so we started to make things more difficult for us.

It felt very flat inside the stadium in the first half today. I don't know if you felt that as well, but I suppose the question is, did you feel there was complacency inside the stadium today?

I don't know. Before Brentford, I called everybody at 7.30, and today was a late kick-off. I forgot to say that.

But at the end we have to completely do the game if we want to get that as well. So there's nothing to question to our supporters. It has to come from us.

In the last minute, everybody was cheering and jumping. Obviously, that's normal and understanding. Hopefully, we can do it from the first minute.

I know you said that the supporters were not in that match, but that few minutes, was that full gas like you said?

Full gas has to be from the one to the 96. There were moments that we tried without being very, very efficient and probably not as clinical as we should be in the final moments. I don't think it's on purpose, but there were moments, obviously, in the period in the second half after scoring the goal, that's not what we want.