Arteta – ‘Let’s focus on our identity’ | Press conference | News

Mikel Arteta insists that the team must retain some perspective and focus on our strengths, as we look to bounce back from successive defeats.

We go into our Champions League quarter-final first leg match away to Sporting CP on Tuesday night, on the back of losing to Southampton in the FA Cup at the weekend, and the Carabao Cup final disappointment against Manchester City before the international break.

It’s the first time all season we have lost successive games, indeed it’s the first time we have gone two games in a row without winning, but the boss says it’s important to retain the elements of our game that have put us in such a strong position this season, when we return to European football in Lisbon.

“Have some perspective, (realise) how difficult it is, what we’ve done up to now,” he said in the pre-match press conference. “And then feel that pain, feel that emotion, and use it to be better and to improve.

“We were very clear in what happened, the reason why it happened, watching the game two times, we didn’t deserve to lose that match, but this is football and we get punished for things that are related to our identity, and that’s the things that we need to defend in the strongest possible way, because that’s the reason that we are where we are today.”

We are back in the last eight of the Champions League for the third successive season, and the manager says he believes his players will fully embrace the opportunity we have against Sporting.

“I think when you have the opportunity that we have, that has to be taken through excitement, through preparing yourself in the best possible way to focus on the present and the things that we have to do. Especially in our identity, being very clear what is taking us on the way to where we are. That’s where we have to focus.

“We have so many facts in the areas that, in our opinion, make us the team and the club that we are.”

In his pre-match press conference at the Jose Alvalade Stadium, Mikel was also asked about how Viktor Gyokeres is feeling about coming up against his former club.

Our top scorer was in Sporting colours when we won 5-1 at this stadium in last season’s Champions League, and it’s a first return here for the Swedish striker since his summer move, to the club where he scored 97 times in just two seasons.

Gyokeres comes into Tuesday’s game on the back of scoring his 17th goal of the season for us at the weekend, and after netting the winner for Sweden against Poland to send his country to the World Cup finals.

“I think he’s very excited,” Mikel said. “Obviously, he’s full of gratitude for his time here. The way he talks about the club, the players, the staff, everybody around the club. The experience that he had, how important that part of his journey in Sporting has been. And now it’s Arsenal, it’s a quarter-final of the Champions League, he’s never played at this level in the competition and obviously you can imagine what it means to him.

“It doesn’t get much better than putting your country into a World Cup with a goal that you scored,” he added. “Those are experiences that you put in your veins. That’s still there and that’s going to be there for the rest of his career, like all the moments that he had here, the moments that he’s creating for us. That’s the story that he’s creating and hopefully tomorrow he’s going to show another very good side of him.”