Mikel Arteta Arsenal
How big a result is that for the mentality of your players?
It feels great. I don’t think it gets much better than winning a trophy at Wembley against the best team in the world, doing it the way we did. It’s really encouraging. We had some great moments, especially in the first half with three massive chances. Unfortunately when you don’t put them away you know what can happen. We have a little error in midfield, don’t clear the ball and the next second, the ball is in the back of the net. Then it’s a very difficult game to play but we made the right choices. The changes and formation change helped and we kept some momentum which allowed us to score the goal and win the penalties.
Aaron Ramsdale said he feels a mental block has been lifted against Man City. Do you agree with that?
I don’t have to agree or disagree, if Aaron feels it this way, great. It’s (about) what the players feel when they are there and they are convinced they can beat any team. We knew the challenge, especially because of their maturity and how often they play finals but today we showed a real resilience and determination to fight and win the game.
In terms of belief, how big is it to have something tangible to actually hold onto going into the season?
It’s great. That’s the reason we’re here, to win trophies for this football club and make it successful. Just the joy of seeing so many happy and proud people, seeing the connection again, doing it at Wembley in front of our supporters feels very different and it was great.
Was it everything except a goal from Kai Havertz’s performance?
Yes. He was superb. The way he pressed, how intelligent he is to understand certain spaces and the timing of it. He was in some great positions to score but was very unlucky not to. He was very physical when he needed to be as well, so I’m very pleased with him.
How was Aaron today?
He was great. We practice penalties a lot on purpose in pre-season to be ready for this just in case. We went through disappointment against Manchester United, for example, and we didn’t stop any of that. That was the learning curve that sometimes is needed to get the right results at the end. I think he was superb.
Is there a danger of being too much expectation?
I don’t know. I just want to grab that trophy as quick as possible and then we can think about the next. We know it’s football, you can win a trophy today and the next day you have to be training and prepare the Forest game in the right way. It will be a different but difficult game against Forest as well. We know we have to go day by day. This is great. It lifts the spirit and belief and everything. But that’s it. We just want to play better and win games. That’s what we have to do.
What are your opinion on the new rules on touchline? Do they impede your style?
I just said ‘I cannot change my behaviour in three days’. It’s a very difficult thing to do and I understand that next time we cannot say tomorrow we play with no offsides and then the next time the linesman says ‘oh what is he doing?’. We try our best, I try my best. I understand the rules and where they’re coming from. Sometimes we get frustrated there because we don’t know in what part of the technical area we are. It’s fine. We’ll adapt.
There’s new rules on added time too. Has that been implemented without considering the players?
No, because at the end it’s about effective time. I think it’s really good to do that because it was going too far I think. Now teams are going to think twice and we’re going to have to be prepared to do play 100 minutes because it’s going to happen every single week.
Has Aaron been feeling pressure amid the talk over the position?
I hope not because the competition always exists whoever it is. That’s how it has to feel like. It has to feel like this and if it doesn’t feel like this we’re not gonna get the best out of each player. So we’d better feel like this and make sure we all feel like this. Me first.
