Mikel Arteta fires blunt Arsenal Premier League title message after Man City blow
Mikel Arteta has issued a blunt title response after Arsenal took advantage of Manchester City’s slip-up with a dramatic late Premier League win over Leicester City.
The victory sees Arsenal now level on points with City thanks to a last-gasp 4-2 victory at the Emirates Stadium. Gabriel Martinelli broke the deadlock before finding an assist to Leandro Trossard in the first half.
However, Arsenal giving away a two-goal lead might have come as a surprise to many. James Justin netted twice to give the visitors a glimmer of hope.
But Leicester would eventually leave north London empty handed after Wilfred Ndidi put the ball in his own net and Kai Havertz added to the lead at the death. City, meanwhile, drew 1-1 at Newcastle United and have dropped into second in the table, with Liverpool taking top spot for a 2-1 win over Wolves.
Arteta, however, dismissed any claims about getting one over City and now sharing the same 14 points. "It's the sixth game of the Premier League," he said after the game. "Regardless of what we do, we are in September.
"We start to build the right platform for the season to be in the places and areas that we want. Obviously to do that we have to win, win, win. That's the demands from the other teams in the league. We can only control what we do. That's it, let's go game by game, and try to improve every week."
READ MORE: Injury crisis, red card problem, title race pressure - Mikel Arteta gets critical Arsenal warning
READ MORE: Arsenal next five fixtures compared to Man City and Liverpool in Premier League title race
On the game itself, the Spaniard admitted feeling extremely worried at the end. Arteta added: "Very worrying. Especially in that scenario. In theory, with the performance we produced, you should never get to this point, but this is the beauty of football in relation to other sports. We did it with the support of our supporters who were unbelievable again.
"It got nasty, it got difficult, it was emotionally difficult to accept with the amount of situations that we created and the amount of goals that we should have scored. But we didn't. So now what? You take ownership of yourself, you start to take more risks.
"I brought on Ethan [Nwaneri] and the guy, at 17-years-old, his first action is to go past two, three people and take a shot. I just love it. If you want to be here and play at that level, you need to have that courage. I really value that from the team today."