As well as seeing his team book their spot in the FA Cup fourth round draw on Monday evening, Mikel Arteta was delighted with many other aspects of our win at Portsmouth.
A hat-trick from Gabriel Martinelli as well as an own goal saw us recover from conceding in just the third minute at Fratton Park to cruise into the next round with a comfortable margin of victory.
And Mikel was delighted that after making 10 changes to his team, the ones that came in impressed and took their chances - quite literally in the case of Martinelli who bagged his first Gunners hat-trick.
“That's what we need, our top players to make the difference, and he certainly did that today,” Mikel said about the man of the match.
“It's always tough to go into these places, especially in the manner that we started the game, conceding the early goal, but we managed to turn things around, so I'm very happy.”
“[Making changes] is always tricky. You lack that cohesion; certain players as well haven't played that many minutes, but a lot of positives to take from the game, apart from the win.
“Marli [Salmon] making his debut in the FA Cup, Kai coming back as well, Gabi scoring twice in a different manner. That's what we need, that they start to take that rhythm, Noni as well, starting and influencing the game.”
This was the first of four matches in four different competitions all away from home, and having seen us overcome the first of them to try and add to our record haul of 14 FA Cup triumphs, Mikel is now looking for us to keep fighting on four fronts for as long as possible.
“We need everybody to be at it,” he added. “We have so many games coming up in different competitions, so we need to be at it.
“I think we are very privileged to be where we are, and the games that we have to play, which means that we are in every competition.”
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