Arsenal London Manager Mikel Arteta He said the following about the victory (3:0) against Belgian Club Brugge in the 6th round match of the Champions League main stage:

“It’s a really positive night and I think it’s very difficult to win away in the Champions League. We did it despite a lot of missing players, especially in defence, and even in the morning we lost two more players. I like how the team responded to it collectively, individually, what Christian Nørgaard did for example shows how much he improved us all with his behavior, his dedication, the way he prepared and the way he played. Yes, overall it was a very positive evening.

I am so happy in the name of Jesus, I think you can see how much we all love him. It was a very, very difficult and long journey. He has been struggling with another serious injury for 11 months and to see him again with that smile, that energy, that quality in his first match for us is really impressive and we are all very happy for him.

He will play an important role in the season, especially if he continues to play as he is now and with the energy he gives to training. I think he brings something special and I was really happy to see that, his confidence growing, his teammates feeling him, because some of them haven’t played with him before. So Gabi has a really special quality; It suddenly brings everyone together around it and that’s what we need as a team and it’s going to make us better.

Madueke scored an incredible goal. If you are talking about individual quality, individual actions, a magical moment, this is it. A player who can take the ball so far, beat his opponents and finish the attack with his quality and power. The same goes for Martinelli. I think if you want to win games at this level you need players who can step up and do something special. That’s why I’m very happy because now we have some players in the forward line and you can see how good we are. It’s about consistency, so every player playing in the center experiences the same example. We need to have these standards and play consistently. It’s not one match, it’s two matches, it’s three matches. Can you make it ten games in a row every three days, that’s the level we need to get to.

Saka and Madueke? They both have different qualities, which is great because we will need them. We play every three days and it’s really good to have players with freshness and desire who understand that they have to play at this level and that’s the standard we set.

That’s what you want immediately after a defeat, to win games and the way they did it, especially when we lost two more players… It shows how consistent we are, the standards we set for ourselves and the team’s ability to win in different ways. I think today was a good example of this.

Salmon’s debut? This idea came up yesterday, given that we had to play Christian Njorgård, we had to think about it carefully because we were playing at home against a very strong team with a great record in the Champions League, but we also knew that we would have to play him at some point. So he was ready, he was prepared, he can play as a centre-back or a full-back and I am very pleased. He is very young, only 16 years old and playing in the Champions League. Yes, it was a great evening for him too.

That’s great, that’s what we want. That’s why we work so hard and everyone in the academy puts so much passion and effort into it. And we need to train these abilities for a long time. So we thank them, because when we need them they are there, ready to play. This is great.

Did I expect to win 6 out of 6 games? No, and maybe when we look back we see that all the players did the same thing. But this shows our level and these were very different games. It’s a completely different game from the game we played against Bayern, the one we played in Bilbao or the one we played at home, but that’s good, the team can adapt to any conditions. “It will also add confidence that we can come into this stadium and win again and that’s a great thing.”