Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta says his side are back to their scintillating best after a 3-1 London derby win over Chelsea on Tuesday night. Gunners’ captain Martin Odegaard scored two brilliant goals in the first half to take his season’s tally to 14 goals while Gabriel Jesus made it 3-0 to grab his tenth goal of the season.
Arsenal ran riot over Chelsea in the first half though it was a different game in the second half where the Blues came out much stronger and pulled one back through Noni Madueke.
That goal turned out to be consolation for Chelsea and for Arsenal, it saw the Gunners return to winning games after four games without a win.
That result saw Arsenal move back to the top of the league temporarily, though City could reclaim their top spot if they beat West Ham on Wednesday night.
Any how it may be, Mikel Arteta is delighted to see his side claim a convincing win and says they are back to their best form as has been seen this season.
Arsenal fully deserved to win, says Arteta
“We wanted to have a very different approach to the game, and we did it right from the beginning,” Mikel said post-match. “The team is back to its best. There was a lot of energy, determination, quality, movement, and we were really going for it. We connected with our crowd straight away, we scored two magnificent goals, got control of the game and fully deserved to win.
“We wanted to prove we had that fire in the belly. I could see that in the last few days, and we prepared the game well. Mentally we arrived in the right mood and with the right level of energy. Everything went for us as well, which is important.
“We’ve had a couple of difficult weeks with very different games with a lot of emotions involved. Today we’re back to the top of the league – let’s see what happens.”
A tally of 14 Premier League goals for Martin Odegaard means he is enjoying his best individual season as a player. Mikel Arteta says the Norwegian can get even better with time.
“We don’t know what the limits of the players are,” he added. ”When you have a player of his quality and his eagerness to learn every single day, he accepts that there are areas he can still improve a lot.
“He is constantly working on them, and in the end you get rewarded. That’s credit to him.”
