Every word Mikel Arteta said on PSV tie, Josh Kroenke visit, Champions League importance

Mikel Arteta was in a seemingly determined mood ahead of his Arsenal side’s clash against PSV in the Champions League. Having stepped off his flight from England less than an hour ago and straight into the press conference, he faced a variety of questions.

PSV naturally were a focus in addition to the weight of this Champions League competition and whether with the Premier League now very unlikely, he felt this would somehow focus the team.

Josh Kroenke also visited the training ground before the team flew to the Netherlands. The manager spoke of his happiness to have his club executive there in what is a very important month for the club.

Here is every word from the press conference as Arteta faced the media:

Jurrien Timber has just been in here and said the match tomorrow is a chance for you to change the narrative of the last couple of months following the injury. Do you feel the same way?

Well, it’s a game that really brings a different energy. It’s a competition that puts everybody on their toes. We’ve done a lot already this season here and now is the moment to start to make another strong step in the direction that we want. So, very excited for the game.

When you look at this competition this year, do you feel it’s quite an open competition? How do you view it? There’s quite a few teams that would class themselves as potential winners. Do you put yourself amongst those?

I think in the group stage, because it was different, I could see it very open. Now I see it very close because I just see one opponent, which is PSV and tomorrow’s game and that’s it. But in the first stage, I think it’s been very, very different.

What do you think about the kind of the tennis format, if you like? Because you can map your path to the final, can’t you? Do you like that? Does that scare you? Do you not get into the reality of it? How do you see it?

I mean, the reality is, being a coach, I just look at what is ahead. And what is ahead is a team that has eliminated a team like Juventus with a history. So, I know the difficulty. We played against them a lot in recent years and we know the difficulty of the match.

You obviously have complete confidence in your team, unless you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting. How do you persuade your players, the players that are available to you now, that they are capable of doing the things that the group you had available to you six weeks ago was doing? Because you can’t hide from the fact that you were missing very, very big players. How do you get that belief from your mind into the mind of your players?

Well, trying to explain how we’re going to do it and why we do things. And they try to deliver that in the best possible way. In the last two results, it’s been very different in terms of performance as well. Not getting the result that we want, but certainly being better, especially in the last game than the opposition. And the fact that we have still gears, even with the players that we have, some other gears to take the game to a different level. When it comes to that stage, it’s about lifting the level and the standards. Every individual has to be at their best. And when we do that, with the team that we have and the connection that we have between us, we are a really strong team.

And do you have to lift your levels as well to help the team recover from a couple of results which you can’t get away from? The fact that it must have been utterly devastating, really, one point from two league games where you would have expected to get six?

Yeah, but what is expected and the reality is very different many times, you know? And it’s part of our job. The moment that you have a result, it’s hurting but it has to last 24 hours because then you have to move on and you have to face the next game and the preparation. And you cannot get away from that. That’s a big quality of a coach or any player at this level because in three days’ time you’re going to have another match, and emotionally and physically, you have to be ready for it.

So you’re over all that now and you believe your players are over all of that?

No, we cannot change it, certainly. We have to learn from it, and we have to take that into the next game. That’s it. There’s a lot of things that we have learned this season in the Champions League about ourselves. But that’s part of the very near past. Now, it’s everything that we’re doing now for the near future. That’s what is going to count.

It’s a similar question, really, but perhaps with parking the frustration of whatever there is, frustration there is about the league and being able to sort of flick a switch in a different competition, what will your message be to the players about being able to do that?

Well, certainly focusing on what we’ve done in this competition and why we’ve done it. And that’s the biggest reassurance because this doesn’t happen at that level of consistency for that many months for a random reason. It’s because we have it on us, you know, and there are certain things we’re going to have to adapt. That’s obviously unquestionable, but we can still be very efficient and a top team.

We saw Josh Kroenke at training. You always like to see him. Did you get a chance to have a chat with him?

Yeah, no, because he had to go, but yes, very happy to have him around. He’s around a lot of times for big moments as well. He’s the one that he really wants to be with the team and it’s great to have him. So, yeah, he’s been around today and hopefully in the next few days as well.

And you said about wanting to lift the players. Does a visit like that lift you as well? Does it gives you inspiration, seeing the man?

Regardless in what situation you are in the league, when you start to come to this stage of the Champions League, there is something else. You feel it in the atmosphere and the energy of the place. It’s something else because it’s a competition you don’t play weekly and you play in a moment where you are in or you are out. And that gives you urgency, and it gets the best out of you, for sure.

Do you think that’s what this team needs? Is that urgency of in or out?

If we need that?

Yeah.

Well, it’s the stimulus that we have, which is great.

Just even with the injuries, do you feel you have the firepower to win this competition?

Again, it’s an ambition. It’s PSV, being better than them today, to have the right to win the game. That’s where we are.

Just in the past few games where you’ve had those attack issues, we’ve spoken about the team defending the low block. Do you think tomorrow, given PSV’s style, we might see a different kind of game that could actually help?

Yeah, normally, they behave in a different way. But I don’t know because they’ve done different things, especially playing home or away. So we’ll have to wait and see.

At the start, you mentioned the team’s learnt a lot about themselves in this Champions League. I was just wondering what are some of those things that they have learnt in this Champions League run so far?

Especially about ourselves. We played very differently at home run away in the last year, especially in Europe this season. We have been much more consistent, we’ve been much more honest. We have scored a lot of goals. We haven’t conceded almost anything. I think we’ve conceded three goals and the lowest expected goals in the group phase, which is great. So that’s a big platform. So we have those resources at the disposal of the team, and that’s something that the team has already done. Now, we have to continue to do it.

And just on Simon’s point with low blocks that you face sometimes in Premier League, I was wondering, so sometimes I think you’ve mentioned obviously the aims to have the ball in the opponent’s half for, I guess, most of the game. But would that lead to teams then playing more of those low blocks against your team, if that makes sense?

Sometimes, it’s not a choice. And as well against Forest, for example, we lost a lot of opportunities where we could have run because we didn’t execute well enough. And there are moments as well when the teams are disorganised. But when we are organised as well, we have faced a lot of them. We have won, I think, every game against a back five, for example, where they behave like that in a different way because the winger was dropping. We are so used to that. It’s about execution after that.

Could you just give a little insight about how you used that time because you rarely have a weekend off.

Yeah.

How did you use it as effectively as you could?

Well, because of the schedule that we had, give some players, most of the players, some time off as well after the last game that we had and then lead the preparation that we normally do. It’s true that we have more time, so we focus a lot of things on us as well and not having to do just game plans and a very short training session related to what’s going to happen in the game. So that was very useful.

You’ve obviously been here the last couple of seasons. How important is it for you to try and come away tomorrow with a positive result, i.e. not losing, feeling confident you can take PSV home and win at home?

Yeah, well, you play in two games. You certainly know that and everything starts tomorrow and tomorrow, the more we are us and the more we play with the intention to dominate the game, to be better than them and win it, the better the result will be, I’m sure.

I think you did an analysis of PSV. You saw the results the last couple of weeks. What do you make of that?

I think the results vary in football. What I’m more interested in is how they behave, what they play, why they do certain things and what we expect them to do against us and what are their weaknesses to try to beat them.

You met each other last season as well. Is it a different situation right now or is it a bit of the same?

Every situation is different. You know, a year in football is a long, long, long time and the context has changed. They have other players as well. We have other players as well. Momentums are different. We played a competition in that moment where we were already qualified. They weren’t, and now it’s a tie that’s going to decide who is through. So it is very different.

Does it rank as one of your best achievements getting your team to the quarter-finals with this team considering the injuries?

The achievement is to see the team that we all want to see tomorrow being better than the opposition and winning the game and don’t take it any further than that.

You talked about the defensive record in the group stages earlier. Given the lack of some of your forwards at the moment, is it even more important that you do keep clean sheets now in the knockout stages?

Well, that’s for sure, but for any team, I think when you look at the history of the team, that they’ve been very successful, the defensive record is critical. And then we have shown the capacity to score a lot of goals in the competition. Obviously, now the circumstances are different, but the team still has a lot of resources to do that.