No handshakes, but Arsenal's final game of the year is so sweet for Arteta
- By Yann Tear
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
A disenchanted Unai Emery raced down the tunnel at full-time without waiting to shake hands with Mikel Arteta after Arsenal's thumping 4-1 win over Aston Villa - but the Gunners boss could hardly have cared less.
He played down what might be interpreted as churlish behaviour by former Arsenal boss Emery and could afford to be magnanimous. His side had handsomely seen off a side on an 11-game winning streak who had moved to within three points of the north Londoners to become title challengers.
"I'm very happy," said Arteta, who said the handshake snub 'was nothing'. "We played an opponent today that comes from 11 wins in a row - a superb team, very difficult to play against. We knew there would be periods [of difficulty] and talked about emotionally how demanding it was going to be and we struggled in the first 10 minutes.
"There were open spaces that they are very dangerous in and we adjusted to get more control to create chances.
"The second half we clicked. Everything went much better. Timings were better and individual roles fulfilled in an extraordinary way - so efficient in everything that we did. We were more aggressive, we were more determined. Today we were very prolific.
"It's so [satisfying] when you play like that against a team that is in such a moment and they are really good, extremely well coached and are very clear what they want to do. You have to navigate that and we did it in a difficult moment and then we took opportunities in a great way.
"To continue to win, you have to win in different contexts. In some games we've been very good and the margin should have been much bigger and we weren't able to do that and went for smaller margins. Today the margin wasn't that big but we made it so because we were extremely efficient in the opposition box.
"Individually, we had some huge performances. We were very efficient in the final third, attacking the box, and that made the difference."
Two of those great individual performances belonged to a returning Gabriel - scorer of the all-important first goal at the North Bank - and skipper Martin Odegaard, who in the absence of the injured Declan Rice, turned in a silky-smooth performance which included a deft assist for the second goal.
"He needed some consistency and some games," Arteta said of Odegaard." Obviously he had two times the shoulder injury and then the knee injury, and that takes a little bit of time and now you can see that he's flowing, that his energy level is back to what it is. He's affecting the game in a great way and I think he was really good today.
"We won today with a lot of injuries. We lost Declan, Ricky [Calafiori] but today Gabi comes back and scores. He comes back after six weeks - it probably should have been a little bit longer - and plays against a team that is probably the hardest to control in terms of their movement and he impacts the game in an incredible way, both in his defending and in the opposition box.
"Winning gives you so much energy and we know there is so much still to play for. But it's a great way to end the year, that's for sure."
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