Mikel Arteta promised that his Arsenal players will fight to the bitter end of a thrilling title chase after they survived a frantic finale to squeak past Tottenham in the north London derby.
Arsenal continue to jostle with Manchester City in what has become a two-horse race, even though they had to defend for their lives in the latter stages as Spurs threatened to cancel out a 3-0 half-time deficit. They pull through and Arteta is convinced nothing will be left on the table during their final three games.
When Kai Havertz scored their third goal seven minutes before half-time it appeared Arsenal would cruise home. He converted a towering header, having also created the second for Bukayo Saka. Arteta brimmed with praise for the in-form forward’s performance and revealed it had been delivered in particularly testing circumstances.
“He was sensational in every department today,” Arteta said. “He wasn’t at 100%. He was ill before the match, he was a bit struggling and still he put the performance that he put in. I thought he was unbelievable today.”
Had it not been for an inexplicable error by David Raya, who passed straight to Cristian Romero and handed Tottenham a lifeline, Arsenal may have sailed home. Arteta conspicuously hugged his keeper at full-time and refused to apportion blame, preferring to highlight the Spaniard’s response.
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“It’s part of football,” he said. “You misjudge the situation, you try to make the pass and you don’t and then you are in the doubt zone, and they scored and took advantage of that.
“What I love is that David does that, he picks his hands up, which are quite heavy, and he was sensational for the last 20 or 25 minutes of the game. This is what I love about our players.”
Arteta admitted he had been “praying” after Son Heung-min’s penalty brought the score back to 3-2. “We had to dig in and suffer and react,” he said of their late rearguard effort. “ I’m very pleased with the way the team has done it.”
For Ange Postecoglou there was disappointment that his side, who sit seven points shy of fourth-placed Aston Villa with two games in hand, could not quite match the level of their more polished rivals. “It’s about now, over the course of time, getting from where we are to where we want to get to,” he said.
Micky van de Ven had an equaliser ruled out for offside via a protracted VAR check shortly before Saka’s goal and Postecoglou, who has long criticised the extra layer of officiating, reiterated his frustration. “Games are not refereed in the stadium any more,” he said. “They are refereed somewhere else and no one will convince me otherwise. That’s why I don’t celebrate goals any more. I wait for somebody down the road.
“I just don’t think referees in the stadium any more have that authority they used to have to make decisions. They just go: ‘You know what, I’ll just wait and see what the bloke down the road thinks.’ It’s a shame, I don’t like it but it’s here to stay and I’ve got to accept it like everyone else.”