Arteta: We have 'seen life' despite bumpy bus ride

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The international break is over, Arsenal are back in action this weekend, and Mikel Arteta is looking for his team to go on a consistent run of results to correct course aboard his title race bus.

The Gunners have picked up 19 points from the opening 11 games of the season, nine fewer than in 2022/23 and five fewer than last season, and are nine points adrift of league leaders Liverpool. But with tough fixtures now in the rear-view mirror, Arteta believes performances have been strong and now is the time for Arsenal to push on with some relatively minor improvements.

“Analysing everything that we’ve done, is the reason why we haven’t won games is because the opponent is superior to usr The clear answer is no,” he told reporters ahead of Saturday’s home game against Nottingham Forest.

“Should we have won more of those games? The answer is yes. Do I like what our team is doing? The answer is yes.

“But we have to improve certain things, especially how we are defending and attacking the box. Overall, I can think of a lot of things, but I need to understand how the players are, and the only way to do that apart from communicating with them on the phone is when they come back and the energy of the staff and players yesterday, it was unbelievable. That’s the joy of being with these guys in this journey. They love being here, they love to be back with us, and that brings the energy up straight away.”

There is now no international break until March and Arsenal play 12 games over the course of the next six weeks, with nine of those coming in the Premier League. The manager sees such a hectic schedule as an opportunity to get a run going.

“It’s a lot of games … it’s about building momentum, getting results and getting back-to-back wins and that will create the energy that we need, the belief that we need with a lot of the good things that we are doing.”

Issues so far — injuries, red cards, points dropped — have not helped but Arteta insisted he was not surprised to run into those issues and it’s about how the team handles them.

“I know from my side, when I plan the season and I have a start and finish and this is a journey, it’s like we all go travelling in the bus together.

“(There’s) going to be a bump, it’s going to be bad weather, things are going to happen. My thing is how I’m going to navigate, how I’m going to make the others navigate with me throughout that period, because it’s going to happen. It’s guaranteed that it’s going to happen.

“Unless we become invincible, we win every game, and then fine, we don’t have to go through it. In the way that I predicted the season, it was going to happen.”

Last season saw similar bumps, most notably the back-to-back defeats to West Ham and Fulham over Christmas and New Year, which the players responded to with a run of eight straight Premier League games after a mid-season break in Dubai. There’s been no such trip this time around but Arteta said crediting last season’s response with that training camp would be too route one, insisting he is confident the team can respond similarly again.

“Yeah, but not because of Dubai. It would be too simple. It’s because I see and looking back at all the games, I look at a lot of the opposition in the Premier League, what they are doing, just to understand what is the context and how good we are in relation to the opposition.

And I’m very confident that this team, the moment we find a bit of consistency and a bit of normality, that is going to kick on.”

So what is needed for that consistency?

“Availability. That’s it. I’m not asking for anything else.”

Now nine points behind, the challenge to catch Liverpool is a big one and Arteta admits there is no real margin for error at this point, but took encouragement from his team’s performance in the 2-2 draw with Arne Slot’s side.

“It’s much smaller obviously when you see the consistency in terms of results that Liverpool are having.

“They’re making obviously exceptional improvements and results, but we have played against them and we have seen life where we are in relation to them. So that gives me a lot of confidence.”

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