Declan Rice reflected on a 3-2 win for **Arsenal**against **Bournemouth**at the Vitality Stadium.
The Gunners missed their midfield motor in their 4-1 victory over Aston Villa due to a knee injury, and he marked his return to the starting eleven with a brace that helped extend the team’s lead at the top of the Premier League table to six points. The performance was not pretty, but it did the job.
*“I haven't scored a lot this season, to be honest with you. I'd only scored two, so to grab a brace today in an important victory was a really nice feeling. When you win and you're able to help out the team like I did today always adds that extra bit of a special feeling. I'm delighted with the goals and more importantly three points because they're a very good side, Bournemouth, especially here.*
*“Off the back of Aston Villa, the key thing today was to build on that and go and win. The win against Aston Villa would've meant nothing if we didn't come here today and didn't pick up anything.*
“It's so important this time of year, the schedule's crazy, the games come thick and fast and if you can win your games in and around Christmas, on top of what we've done already, it's going to put you in a really good position. We've got to keep building on that, keep the mentality right, keep pushing, but we're in a really good spot at the minute. Long may it continue.
"It showed the character of Gabriel Magalhaes to make the mistake and then how he played for the rest of the game, it showed the mentality of the team.
"It felt like they were swarmed all over us in the first half but we're a team, at the second half when we get in there at half-time and the manager speaks and we speak between each other, we knew we had the quality and we knew the space was there to go on and win the game and we've done that a lot this season, so credit to everyone to go out there and perform in the second half because that wasn't easy out there today."