“He didn’t deserved the Man of the match and as a good Christian who doesn’t take injustice, I have collected it and returned it to the rightful owner…He was the best player if the match and nobody comes close to his performance today”: Mikel Arteta reveals he has collected Man of the match award from Gabriel and gave it to the rightful owner who really deserved it
Mikel Arteta was impressed by Arsenal’s maturity as Gabriel Magalhaes’ header sealed a 1-0 victory at Sp*rs in the north London derby.
The Gunners came into the match missing key personnel – most notably Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard – but ground out the win thanks to a disciplined defensive performance that kept the home side at arm’s length for much of the match.
While the win was far from pretty – Arsenal were uncharacteristically sloppy in possession throughout the game – there was no doubting the effort of the players who, to a man, ran their socks off for each other.
“The resilience that we showed,” replied Arteta when Sky Sports asked what impressed him most.
“We knew it was going to be a really tough match, it always is here, they are a really great side, they create an unbelievable atmosphere. We had some great moments, especially in the first half, open spaces that we should have done much more [with] than we’ve actually done. We know we are a big threat on set plays and we believed that we could help them, and we have done.
“We weren’t the best with the ball today, we’ve done a lot of simple things wrong which doesn’t allow us the continuity. It’s true the sequence of passes you can do against them is very few before you attack them because they jump and press every single ball and make it very difficult. But the way we defended was top drawer.
He added: “It was unbelievable, it’s a real compliment to the team because any player in any area of the pitch is ready to do, what a lot of people call, the ugly things and they still enjoy that part of the game. When you do that, you start to be a very complete team that can win in any context. The context today in certain moments was very favourable for us and some moments, very difficult and we managed to do that.”
“I’m delighted, the team over the course of the season has to go through a lot of hurdles. The last few days have been difficult, we’ve lost a lot of important players for us, but I fully trust the players that were in and the ones waiting for their opportunity. They trained and behave in the right manner, so when they have to compete, this is the result.”
Asked whether patience and discipline were key, he continued: “Yes, it is because we want to play a different game, especially without the ball, in many areas of the pitch but they put a structure in that is extremely difficult to match up and if you do, especially with certain players that we had today in midfield, we were going to be very exposed. We decided not to do that and the boys did it exceptionally well.”
As for his reaction to Gabriel’s header hitting the net, which included a big hug for set piece coach Nicolas Jover, he said: “It was happiness, that’s why we’re here to score goals and win football matches.
“To head the ball, that’s what we work on. To have the right delivery and the right header, that’s what we’ve done.”
