Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: Mikel Arteta hails Arsenal captain’s mental strength after Newcastle brace

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Mikel Arteta hailed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s mental strength after the Arsenal captain bounced back to score twice against Newcastle.

Aubameyang has endued a difficult season so far and before a 3-0 win over Newcastle, he had only scored six times in the current campaign.

The forward’s misery looked like it was going to continue on Monday night, when in the first-half he squandered good chances.

Aubameyang, however, bounced back from that and scored twice as the Gunners ran out 3-0 winners to make it six games without defeat in all competitions.

“That’s what he (Aubameyang) has done throughout his career and mentally you have to be really strong in order to that,” said Arteta.

“He has come out of a difficult period. We have been missing his goals a lot. Today he has come back and scored two, and contributed to the team to win and this is exactly what we need. So I am really pleased for him.

“I am really pleased with the performance overall, because collectively and individually it was really strong from the beginning. It took us longer than we wanted to score the first goal, because in the first-half we had good chances.

“But overall the team looked confident, looked solid, looked compact and very clear about what we had to do defending and attacking. So I am really pleased with the clean sheet, the goals and overall the run at the moment we are on.”

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