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Here is every word Mikel Arteta said during his post-match press conference after Arsenal beat Chelsea 2-1 at the Emirates Stadium
Mikel Arteta faced the media following his Arsenal side’s vital victory over Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium. It was a tense end to the game despite both having the lead and an extra man after Pedro Neto was sent off for a second yellow.
It was a tense game that ended with such a sense of panic, almost like at Wolves, but this time they managed to come through it. Even if a late Liam Delap was ruled out for offside.
It feels like every game until the end of the season will carry such jeopardy. Arteta was delighted but realistic about the manner in which his side secured the points in what he described as a proper London derby.
Here is every word from the press conference:
Thoughts on the performance
A proper London derby. We expected that because of the quality of the position, because of the individual quality that they have and because we played them four times already so we know how good and difficult they are to play against. After we started the game so well, the first half it was very, very dominant. I think the margin, the scoreline, should have been bigger, but we were 1-1.
Game on. I reminded them that we were in the exactly same position against Spurs seven days ago in that dressing room. They said, ‘Look what happened in the second half!’ So we're going to do it again. But probably we're going to have to go through some difficult patches to earn the right to win the game.
We certainly done that. We took the moment to score the second goal and after the red card we were expecting a very different outcome in the last few minutes, but we managed to control and dominate that scenario as well as we wanted. On top of that, Chelsea did some very, very good things in that period, and we needed David [Raya] to win us the game.
A lot is going to be made of how good Arsenal are from the corners, they got you over the line again today. Have you had to go to another level with them this season because of how much sides are focussing on that aspect of the game?
Yeah, but every team to be fair, look where they are in terms of the amount of goals that they score and they have more quality in their score probably than anybody else to create and the team and the game at the end got decided in this aspect. So we haven't scored set-pieces for a few weeks now, but we scored so many in open play. Today was an option to score from this kind of situation; we've done it so well, and we conceded as well.
I'd like to ask you about someone who doesn't always get the headlines and that's David Raya. Today it felt like, as usual, he really made some unbelievable saves. How vital is his personality, his presence, what he brings in that department?
Well, David is one of our leaders without a doubt, and he's a keeper that knows how to maintain his focus and decide a football match when you need it. Because sometimes he doesn't participate at all, and then in one action [clicks], you have to be there, and that's very, very difficult to do. And the save that he made it in the last action, it's a cross, it's not a shot, but he ended up being an unbelievable shot and I got the right angle and my heart almost stopped, but David's hand was there to bring it back to life.
How was he after it? He looked like he might have got an injury at some point and also he was quite animated at the end, talking to Iñaki, is he OK in any way?
I don't know what happened in that action, he had some niggles this week, so I don't know if it's related to that, but overall very happy.
We talked last week ahead of the Tottenham game about how you control the end of games following the Wolves draw and you talked about keeping the tempo, keeping calm. After the 85th minute your team completed just seven passes in that 11 minutes that was left. How big is the challenge in trying to keep the players calm and do their roles in those moments of high pressure?
That's what we have to do, to train game context in those scenarios is becoming really difficult because we don't have time to train. To replicate those moments is almost impossible because the emotional part is not there and the quality of the opponent, you cannot do it basically. But it's certainly something that we'll discuss tomorrow because we have to improve it and do better, but at the same time you have to give credit to Chelsea for the manner that they've done it, the way they use the keeper as an extra player, the courage that they showed, how they get out from tight situations is unbelievable. Caicedo, Lavia, Cole. There's not many players that can do that and it causes you the problem and turn you around.
It might be the lighting, but it looks like you've got a black eye.
Black eye?
Yeah, the left eye, are you OK?
Yeah. Thank you so much, I'm going to give you a hug now, thank you for checking on me, very good.
What goes through your head? Mikel, earlier you said your heart almost stops in injury time for those moments, what's it like when you're watching that and you can't control it and what goes through your mind? Are you expecting it basically to be like that now for the next couple of months, if Arsenal win this title?
No, I'll try to stay calm, but obviously, we weren't getting the dominance and the sequences of play that we wanted and expected against the 10 men. So you have to navigate through that, and it's a big part of the game, and when you see the men and other teams are winning games, everybody's suffering, the margins are so small, so it's good.
A possible injury for David Raya, a lot of players really put themselves through it and suffered, Declan Rice was struggling a bit, are there any injury problems you think looking ahead to the next game?
I don't know, Declan asked to be substituted, so we're going to have to get checked and see if he's available for Wednesday, unfortunately, and the rest are hopefully OK, but we don't know.
It's going to be hard to start that same team every match, isn't it, with all these games?
We haven't done it, we're going to have to make changes and give opportunities to everybody to be fresh.
Mikel, you mentioned everyone is suffering there, are ugly games a bit inevitable with the calendar now for the end of the season?
Yeah, well, it's not ugly, you have to play the game that is there for you to play, and against Chelsea, you know exactly the game you're going to play. For me, it's a beautiful game to play because there is so much quality and you have to adapt so much to what they do, and they have to do the same against us, so the margins are very, very small, and the duels at the end decide these kind of games, and hopefully we can play many top games like this.
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