Mikel Arteta expects a difficult game against Sunderland on Saturday, November 8, as we look to extend our winning run to 11 matches in all competitions.
With our 3-0 victory over Slavia Prague on Tuesday, we matched the record for consecutive clean sheets in competitive matches by an English club with eight, and the boss wants to see us maintain our high standards on Saturday.
“It’s not about credit, it’s about doing it, and once you’ve done it, do it again, and that’s what we have to do,” the boss said at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Friday. “Today we train at our best, try to improve, try to give a lot of clarity to the players and understanding of the game that we have to play tomorrow, and tomorrow is execution day again.”
Despite our fantastic form, Mikel maintains that we can still improve, as a tough test awaits against a Sunderland side that are unbeaten at home this season.
“Everything (can improve), because you learn from your team every single day, from your players every single day, from the opponents that you play every single time and that’s information that is so valuable to us.
“Tomorrow is going to be a very different game to Tuesday, and to the week before. We need to read it, we need to understand very early what the game requires, what we have to do to be better than them and hopefully beat them.”
Victory over the Black Cats would extend our lead at the top of the table to nine points ahead of Manchester City, who host Liverpool the following day. But asked if we are the only team that can stop ourselves winning the Premier League, Mikel was quick to reiterate the quality of the league.
“I don’t agree, I’m sorry, because any team has the capacity and I’m sure the belief as well that they can do it, we are fully aware of that. We know our strength, we know the things that we have to improve as well and we just focus on that.
“I’m just focused on tomorrow’s game. How crucial, how difficult and how tough it’s going to be and that’s the first step we have to make.”
Although the boss dismissed talk of us running away with the league, he did acknowledge that tomorrow’s game is an important one in our season.
“Every weekend is crucial; there are weekends for other possible results or other games, maybe they are a little bit more important.
“But at the end, you just need to conquer a certain amount of points if you want to achieve your goals and three points against Sunderland tomorrow is going to be really tough and we’re going to have to really earn them.”
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