Mikel Arteta has warned that Arsenal must show more composure to close out games after his team secured a nervy 2-1 win over Brighton at Emirates Stadium on Saturday.
The Gunners delivered the victory they needed to return to the top of the Premier League but only after surviving a late rally as Diego Gómez‘ 64th-minute goal halved a lead created by Martin Ødegaard’s first goal of the season and Georginio Rutter‘s second-half own goal.
David Raya was required to make a brilliant one-handed stop to deny substitute Yankuba Minteh‘s 76th-minute effort as Arsenal held out on another fraught occasion to sit alongside recent wins over Wolves and Crystal Palace.
«When you just conceded in the last minute, the game before against [Crystal] Palace as well, when we didn’t really concede nothing, and then they score with the first shot that they had obviously it is this,» Arteta said.
«But then we have to be able to go through that as well with normality, showing composure and understanding that, ‘OK, if you don’t do that well, you are not efficient in your opponent, then you have to be incredibly good in your own.’ That’s a good way as well to go through that.
«It’s the willingness to win. We all want to win so badly, that it’s like, ‘no, I don’t want to lose what I have.’
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«We have to play to continue to score and show that composure and that ability. We should have scored the third one.»
Arteta revealed Riccardo Calafiori picked up a muscular problem in the warm-up while Jurriën Timber was replaced after sustaining an unspecified issue in training on Friday.
