coming against Chelsea<\/a> in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg at Stamford Bridge on 14 January. Before that, he had seven goals in 24 Arsenal games. The question is whether he can deliver in another crunch London derby. It can be considered with a good deal less trepidation.<\/p>\n\u201cWe didn\u2019t underestimate the step from Sporting to Arsenal,\u201d Arteta said. \u201cWe tried to explain all the new circumstances and contexts that Viktor\u2019s going to have to adapt to. The big one was a different league, a different game model. Players that he never played with before. And on top of that, you come with expectations of being that No 9. That\u2019s a big one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta is all smiles after beating Tottenham. He then gave his players two days off as they had no midweek game. Photograph: David Cliff\/EPA<\/p>\n
It has been an unusual week for Arsenal in that, for the first time in two months, they did not have a midweek game. Arteta said he would have loved to go away to Dubai with the squad \u2013 as Arsenal did last February. When that was deemed unfeasible, he gave the players a couple of days off to clear their heads and maybe enjoy a bit of space from each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then you get very surprised,\u201d Arteta said. \u201cAnd I find out that eight or 10 players were having dinner in somebody\u2019s house or spent the whole afternoon together. That\u2019s the beauty of it \u2013 the fact that they want to be together; they feel that being together is the best thing they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta\u2019s record against Chelsea is excellent \u2013 W10 D4 L2 in all competitions. There was the FA Cup final victory over them in August 2020 and the crucial league win at the Emirates on Boxing Day of that year, which some people thought kept Arteta in his job. He is unbeaten against Chelsea in 10 meetings.<\/p>\n
If Gy\u00f6keres continues to fire, Arsenal\u2019s hopes will soar \u2013 even if there could be a financial penalty. When he reaches 20 for combined goals and assists, he will trigger one of the add-on payments to Sporting, \u20ac500,000 (\u00a3440,000). He has two assists to go with his 15 goals. \u201cI hope the owners and everyone at the club is really happy if that\u2019s the case,\u201d Arteta said of the eventuality of their having to pay it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Viktor Gy\u00f6keres fixes you with those piercing blue eyes and that inscrutable look, it is possible to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-504688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}