Mikel Arteta has admitted Arsenal’s availability problems led him to lose sleep in the build-up to Sunday’s north London derby at Tottenham but hailed his team’s resilience as they secured a vital 1-0 victory.
Gabriel Magalhaes‘ 64th-minute header settled a tight contest in Arsenal’s favour, with Arteta’s team now having won three consecutive away league games at Spurs for the first time since 1988.
Arsenal were without Declan Rice through suspension in addition to injury absentees Martin Ødegaard, Mikel Merino and Riccardo Calafiori.
Ødegaard and Calafiori picked up injuries on international duty while Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney were also ruled out.
“I didn’t enjoy [the preparation] because I didn’t sleep much,” Arteta said. “I looked ahead to Spurs for four or five days and I had a super clear plan how to do it.
“I prepared all the meetings, the training sessions and everything. Then I get the news that we’ve lost a player, and then another player and then another player, and I had to completely change it and adapt the plan to the players that we had available. So, it was a great challenge.
“The second we started to get that news, the team got hungrier and hungrier to play that game. It’s a big compliment to everybody at the club to behave in a certain way. It’s a tough week coming and instead of finding any excuses we did the opposite. We faced the challenge, played with courage and acknowledged the qualities we had to win the game.”
Ødegaard sustained an ankle problem which Norway team doctor Ola Sand suggested would sideline the Arsenal captain for three weeks, ruling him out of Thursday’s Champions League trip to Atalanta and Sunday’s visit to Premier League champions Manchester City.
However, Arteta insisted after Sunday’s game that Arsenal still had to “wait and see” regarding his future availability.