Mikel Arteta highlighted match winner Gabriel Martinelli’s ‘incredible’ mentality as Arsenal left it late to take three points against Manchester City to secure a crucial 1-0 win in Premier League.
Martinelli’s effort took a heavy deflection off Nathan Ake and diverted away from Ederson in the Manchester City goal.
The Brazilian winger replaced Leandro Trossard at the start of the second half, after a tense opening 45 minutes between the top two teams of last season.
Martinelli has missed Arsenal’s last five matches in all competitions after suffering an injury at Goodison Park, but he insisted he would make his mark against the champions.
“He’s been saying for a few weeks ‘I’m going to be there against City’. Everyone was saying Gabi it will be too early for you. Yesterday he said ‘boss, I told you I’m going to be ready for
this’, said Arteta.
“It happened that Leo, after 30 minutes, felt something in his hamstring. I turned around and [Martinelli] was ready to go with his kit. ‘Boss, I’m ready’. It’s the joy of a kid.
“His mentality is incredible at his age. It’s a joy to have him. Today he could change a
game and he was really helpful for us to win the game.”
This was Arsenal’s first win against Manchester City since 2015, when Arsene Wenger was still in charge. Manchester City have suffered back to back Premier League defeats for the first time since December 2018. This game could have a huge impact on the title race as Arteta finally gets one over Pep Guardiola, who he understudied for years at Manchester City
“I don’t know if was a barrier. Obviously it was something we needed to go through. To beat them we have to lose against them, we have to lose probably the way we lost at the Etihad”, Arteta explained.
“We lost in two different ways. last season, here where we were the better team, especially in the first
half and then we concede the goal on the back pass of Tomiyasu and DeBruyne scoring.
“The team showed a real maturity today, that comes from experiences. Sometimes you need that to become a better team.”
