After our 1-0 win away to Manchester United, Mikel Arteta conducted his usual post-match press conference to discuss the main talking points of the game.<\/p>\n
The boss was asked about the result, the performance, the new players, Riccardo Calafiori and more. Here’s a full transcript…<\/p>\n
On importance of the result…<\/strong> On the determination of the team…<\/strong> On winning despite not playing at our best…<\/strong> On decision-making in the final third…<\/strong> On Viktor Gyokeres\u2019 debut…<\/strong> On Riccardo Calafiori\u2019s performance…<\/strong> On our strong record against the \u2018big six\u2019…<\/strong> On Christian Norgaard\u2019s absence…<\/strong> Copyright 2025 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After our 1-0 win away to Manchester United, Mikel Arteta conducted his usual post-match press conference to discuss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-353116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115047432369612258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Big, big result coming in the first game of the season at Old Trafford.\u00a0When you feel that they are building something special, momentum,\u00a0with a new signing and they want to kick on the season in a good way\u00a0and you are able to come away with the win, I’m very happy and proud of the team.<\/p>\n
Yes, because we showed it in a different way today.\u00a0I think we did two things very well.\u00a0One, to take the set-piece and then react to, especially, mistakes. Some of them are necessary, some of them unusual.\u00a0But the way every single player reacted to that gives us the opportunity to win the game.\u00a0If not, it’s impossible. And that’s about how we compete and how much we want it as a team.<\/p>\n
Well, that gives you certainly momentum and confidence – two very important things. Because you know that when you know your standards in certain aspects,\u00a0which today we weren’t, being fair,\u00a0we can still come away and find a way to win the game.\u00a0And the team has to find that resilience throughout the season\u00a0for ten months in different contexts to be able to do that.\u00a0Of course, we have to improve a lot of things and that will happen very soon. But in terms of managing to get that into a very positive result,\u00a0that’s a great way to do it.<\/p>\n
I think there were seven, eight situations\u00a0when the ball is completely open to play through and we are on\u00a0and we’re attacking the keeper. And we give that ball away and then it becomes a basketball game.\u00a0And again, a basketball game against a team that is extremely,\u00a0extremely good at finishing actions with the quality that they have,\u00a0that’s a very difficult thing to do.\u00a0That’s why I talk about the reaction to that. Because if you don’t react in relation to that mistake,\u00a0quick enough, sharp enough, you have a big problem.<\/p>\n
He did a lot of things very good.\u00a0You can tell, especially in our high pressing,\u00a0the rhythm that we demand, especially in the first half,\u00a0we’re giving a bit too much time.\u00a0It’s something that we have to work on, especially there. And then in the finalising situation,\u00a0he didn’t have that many chances to do that because, as I said,\u00a0on the previous action before we had to play that last ball\u00a0that the line was standing still with 40 metres behind,\u00a0we managed to put the ball through to exploit his quality.\u00a0But overall, coming away to Manchester United,\u00a0winning your first game with Arsenal, it’s a good start.<\/p>\n
He has the capacity to change the energy.\u00a0He comes in this room and he changes the energy in the room,\u00a0he changes the energy in the team. He has an aura, he has a presence that is special.\u00a0And then he’s a player that is very unpredictable for the opponent\u00a0because he can occupy very different spaces,\u00a0he can do things in and around your box,\u00a0in the middle, in the opposition box,\u00a0that is very difficult to predict.\u00a0So, very happy with him.<\/p>\n
I think that was the case [putting the mental block against the Big Six to bed].\u00a0It was 18 years, or 22 years here at Old Trafford\u00a0without winning before I came, and now\u00a0I go in the dressing room, we won here the first game,\u00a0and we are not still happy.\u00a0It’s a good sign.<\/p>\n
He had a little issue the medical staff will address. He wasn\u2019t able to play today.<\/p>\n