Mikel Arteta, after the hard-fought victory with Newcastle: “It won't be all roses and beautiful music” + Advertisement: “Clear red!”

After two failures in a row, the “gunners” needed at least one point to advance Manchester City, busy this weekend with the semi-final of the FA Cup.

Arsenal faced struggling Newcastle and beat them thanks to a superb goal from Eberechi Eze. “The Gunners” did not generate much danger at the opposing goal, evident from the xG of only 0.49.

For Mikel Arteta, what matters is that Arsenal got the points at stake. The Spanish coach warned that the road to the title will not be “strewn with roses and beautiful music”.

Back on 1 with Arsenal, Mikel Arteta says: “It won't be all roses and beautiful music. It's very hard to win”

“I'm really happy for the win. We talked about the first game and how important it was. We did our job. We should have finished with a bigger lead, but when the score is 1-0 it's always difficult because they have quality and they brought a lot of good players from the bench. And when we don't finish the actions, especially the clear ones we had, the difference will be small.

I don't expect that after 22 years of not winning [titlul]let's have a path strewn with roses and beautiful music. It will be exactly like that [cum a fost astăzi] and we are ready for it.

It's so hard to win in this league. We know that. That's why the number of points the teams have now, compared to all other years, is different. And the reason is that it is so competitive, so difficult to succeed.

At half-time the message was clear: we have to go and score the second goal. We tried, but when you're not that effective in certain areas, we definitely have to have other solutions, other things to win the game.

We had to do what was in our power and we discussed it. The first game depends on us, what we do and how we approach the game. Are we able to win it? We did it, we wanted a bigger difference, it wasn't possible, but we certainly did our job,” Arteta said at the conference, as quoted by Football London.

Asked about the issues complained about by Kai Havertz and Eberechi Ezeboth substituted along the way, Arteta assured that “it's minor muscle problems. We don't think it's anything serious. We have to wait and see if they'll be available for Wednesday.”

He complained that Nick Pope was not sent off: “If it was the other way around, it would have been a red card!”

On top of that, he kept talking about the 74th-minute phase in which Nick Pope brought down Viktor Gyokeres outside the box while the goal was empty.

The goalkeeper was only given a “yellow”, the referees considering that there was no imminent goal situation – Gyokeres was close to the touch and it is not known if he would have reached the ball first, if Pope had not prevented him.

But Arteta is firm: “I have to say it's a clear red card in my opinion! I've watched the replay 10 times. If you've ever played football, you know it's a red card.

It's the second time in two games because I remember the phase with Manchester City, when Kai Havertz gets away alone, Khusanov fouls him, the score was 1-1, the title is at stake… It's a red card, folks. So these are also the small details and I hope this changes.

I don't know, they will have their opinion, I'm here to give my opinion as someone who has been in the phenomenon for a long time; talk to any of the players, because given the trajectory of the ball, there is no goalkeeper there. If it had happened the other way around, it would have been a red card.”