Mikel Arteta assessed the challenge of keeping the momentum at **Arsenal**against Burnley.
This is the first of three fixtures that the team must complete away from home before the international break. Though the Clarets are a promoted outfit, the best of last season’s **Championship**have proven to be more competitive than in recent years, and the Gunners cannot relent in their pursuit of glory.
“[We have to] maintain the level of urgency, the concentration, the focus, the ambition that we are showing every game. Every game brings different challenges, sometimes we have to be very patient, some other times we have to have a different approach.
“The game against Burnley is going to be tough. They are extremely well-coached, I know Scott Parker really well and what he’s done with the club and with this team, it’s formidable. When you look at all the games that I see, five of the last games they played, a very, very tough team to beat.
“More than ever, I think the level is increasing year after year. Better structure, better organisation, better decision-making from clubs, managers, better players, so it tells you the difficulty of that. When I look at the big teams, the way [the promoted clubs] have behaved and how they have earned points or lost points, it’s from very small margins and that’s the reality in this league.
“It’s a big opportunity that we have ahead of us but we have to continue with that level of consistency and we know how difficult that is. Tomorrow is going to be an extremely tough match for us and we’re going to have to hit those performance levels to win the game.
“At the end, you learn that the margins to achieve it or not are many. It can be that an opposition player is one-on-one against the keeper, and he scores that goal – you are the champion. The other keeper saves it – you are not the champion. It can be injuries, it can be decisions, it can be a mistake. There can be so many factors that we cannot control. What we can control is what we can do the best.
“Many factors have to go your way. You can do a lot of great things, and still a lot of things have to go your way; the injuries and players that you have to play and they have to be there, and their personal lives have to be perfect because if not, it can unbalance. It's so many things. It's so long.
“We've already seen the turnaround in the league, and going to the Champions League is the same, other leagues are the same. We are in a very specific context right now, so let's focus day by day.”