Arsenal defeated West Brom 3 – 1, courtesy of goals from Emile Smith Rowe, Nicolas Pepe and Willian at the Emirates.
Mikel Arteta spoke to the press after the match. Here’s what he had to say…
On the win…
We needed that win. It’s been a while since we won at home so obviously, it was really important to get the three points. We scored three fantastic goals and we had spells in the game; some brilliant spells where we could have scored many more. Then when we conceded the goal, we looked nervy.
On his side’s nervousness…
We knew the necessity to win the game. We wanted to put that right today. The moment they scored on the counter-attack – that we didn’t defend well – they went man-to-man and they started to throw everything at us, obviously, they know the situation they are in, we struggled to play that kind of game. After we got some control when we got Thomas [Partey] on the pitch and then we scored the winner.
On the goals…
They were fantastic goals and we could have scored some more. We missed some big chances as well.
On scoring tonight when we didn’t on Thursday…
Yes, but Europe is a completely different game, a different context. An inch in football decides whether you’re in a final or not and we needed a little bit of luck and it didn’t happen. Obviously, there were things we could have done much better. It was a really tough one.
On goals from Smith Rowe, Pepe and Willian…
It’s the first Premier League goal for Emile. We’re demanding from him standards her [lifts hand high] and what he’s done is still here [lowers hand]. What he’s done is at a top club and he’s done well but when you look at his numbers, he hasn’t done that enough. We cannot put those demands on him. With Willian, we have to because he’s done it in the past and we have to demand it much more. The same with Nico [Pepe], he needs to do that in a more consistent way. With the young kids, patience.
On Saka at left-back…
Going forward, we know he’s a real threat and gives us something unique, the same as KT. Defensively, there is a lot of things to work on with him, but he adapted. We knew we were going to attack against them, the way they set up and to be fair, it gave us a lot of joy.
