Arteta encouraged as Arsenal stay in title hunt with convicing win over Bournemouth

Mikel Arteta said he was "very excited" about the final two games of this season as Arsenal look to win their first Premier League title for 20 years.

The Gunners stayed in contention for the title with a convincing 3-0 win over Bournemouth at the Emirates today, thanks to a penalty from Bukayo Saka and strikes from Leonardo Trossard and man-of-the match Declan Rice.

The win moved Arsenal four points clear of Manchester City ahead of City's game against Wolves this evening.

The Manchester side have two games in hand, but with Arsenal's superior goal difference all that is needed is one draw from Pep Guardiola's men to put the destination of the trophy into the hands of the Gunners.

Asked how he felt ahead of Arsenal's games at Manchester United next Sunday and Everton on the final weekend of the season the week after, Arteta said: "Very excited. We have done it for nine months now. There's two weeks to go. We want to get it done. We are closer than we were yesterday and hopefully we can bring that title here."

Arsenal were on the very top of their game today. They had an incredible 12 efforts on goal inside the first 25 minutes alone - with every outfield player in a red shirt bar Gabriel going close in that time.

But Saka's 45th minute penalty was all they had to show for it. And Arteta praised the way his side stuck at it. He said: "It was probably the best first half we have played all season.

"We were unbelievable. Everything flowed, we were super composed on the ball, really aggressive without the ball, we generated so many chances, we could have scored three, four, five easily but we didn't, we scored one.

"Then credit to Bournemouth, the game became a bit more open but within that game we resolved certain situations in the right way and were very efficient in front of goal and were able to maintain another clean sheet."

That clean sheet was David Raya's 17th of the Premier League season, meaning he has already secured the top division's golden glove. Of the achievement, Arteta said: "I think it's a huge success for this team to achieve that with a few games still to go and he has given us a huge foundation to win trophies."