After overseeing our topsy-turvy 2-2 draw against Sunderland, Mikel Arteta was left with a mixture of disappointment and pride after leaving with a point.
We trailed at the break after Dan Ballard’s opener, but efforts from Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard during a much-improved second half saw us come within touching distance of a 12th successive win, but Brian Brobbey’s acrobatic equaliser forced us to settle for a draw.
Mikel was diplomatic post-match, and admitted that while in the immediate aftermath, he was unhappy to see us concede late on, he was delighted that his players stretched their unbeaten run to 14 matches despite plenty of recent challenges.
“We’re obviously disappointed that we lost two points,” he said. “We knew that it was going to be really tough, really disruptive, a lot of stop and start, a lot of long balls. We dealt with that the majority of the time good, but we conceded two goals in a way that we should have defended better.
“After 1-0, I think the team reacted really well. We scored a goal, scored a second goal, really dominated the game and created more chances, and then at the end, they don’t need much, just a ball in the air, it’s a front-up ball where we can deal with that better. We conceded a goal, but we reacted immediately and we have a massive chance with Richy and Mikel to win the game.
“So overall, we’re disappointed with the result, but so proud of the players because putting into perspective what they’ve done in the last 10 games, winning all of them with the amount of clean sheets that they had, with seven players injured.”
After another gruelling run of seven games in 21 days, which we’ve managed to navigate despite a host of injuries and still remain unbeaten, Mikel is looking forward to a couple of weeks to reassess our start to the season, and take stock of where we are.
With massive matches on the horizon against Tottenham Hotspur, Bayern Munich and Chelsea next on the calendar, the boss is eager to get some more players back at his disposal, ready for that run, as we look to stretch our unbeaten run even further.
“Now we reset with the international break, get the [international] players back nice and healthy, the ones that are not healthy make sure that they get healthy, and we go again.
“We’ll look back at what we’ve done, take all of the positive things that we do, the things that we have the opportunity to improve as well and start to plan what is coming because it’s going to be very demanding.
“Our supporters have been amazing again today, thank you so much. They’ve been all over us the last few weeks, and we’re going to need them with us.”