Arteta: We have ‘seen life’ despite bumpy bus ride – Arseblog News

The international break is over, Arsenal are back in action this weekend and Mikel Arteta will be looking for his side to go on a consistent run of results to set the course aboard his title racing bus.

The Gunners have picked up 19 points from the first 11 games of the season, nine fewer than in 2022/23 and five fewer than last season, and are nine points behind league leaders Liverpool. But with tough games now in the rearview mirror, Arteta believes the performances have been strong and now is the time for Arsenal to continue with some relatively small improvements.

“When we analyze everything we’ve done, is the reason we haven’t won games because the opposition is superior to us? 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 defend and attack the box. In general, I can think of many things, but I have to understand how the players are and the only way to do that, apart from talking to them on the phone, when they come back, and the energy from the staff and the players yesterday, that’s the joy of being with these guys on this journey, they love to be here, they love to be back with us and it brings the energy up immediately.”

There is now no international break until March and Arsenal play 12 games over the next six weeks, nine of which come in the Premier League. The leader sees such a hectic schedule as an opportunity to get the race going.

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

Problems so far – injuries, red cards, dropped points – have not helped, but Arteta insisted he was not surprised to encounter these problems and it is about how the team deals with them.

“I know from my side that when I plan the season, and I have a start and an end, and this is a journey, it’s like we’re all traveling on the bus together.

“(There’s) going to be a bump, there’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 get the others to navigate with me throughout that period because it’s going to to happen. It’s guaranteed to happen.

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

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

“Yes, but not because of Dubai. That would be too simple. It’s because I look and look back at all the games, I look at a lot of the opposition in the Premier League, what they do, just to understand what the context is , 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, will kick on.”

So what does it take for that consistency?

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

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

“It is of course much less when you see the consequence in terms of results that Liverpool have.

“Obviously they’re making exceptional improvements and results, but we’ve played them and we’ve seen life, where we are compared to them. So that gives me a lot of confidence.”