Mikel Arteta on Arsenal querying red card after Palace win and team cohesion
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00:00 Have you heard from the referee about Monday?
00:11 Yeah we have the report but I would keep that confidential to myself.
00:16 Does it irritate you that they are saying sorry but it doesn't make any difference?
00:25 I think every referee has the intention to have the best game and try to be as fair as
00:29 possible and make all the right decisions.
00:33 We all make decisions and when we do just apologising is the least that you can do and
00:39 try to improve and be better.
00:41 But they don't seem to improve.
00:42 They seem to, when the referee is playing, he's got a game on Saturday, he thinks it's
00:47 for official, there doesn't seem to be any real comeback from them unless it's a really
00:52 bad mistake.
00:53 There is no other solution at the moment.
00:55 When you have players, you have a certain amount of players, referees, they have a certain
00:58 amount of referees, they will try to do the same and Howard is trying to improve and change
01:03 that and he's trying various different ways to do it.
01:06 He's been very open about the process and what to expect on it and that's it.
01:11 We have to focus and my job is to focus on something else.
01:14 Can you do that when you have two players stepping into midfield?
01:32 Is that too much, too risky?
01:36 Depends where you have the ball, for how long you have the ball, in which areas, which other
01:41 relationships you have, what type of opponent you play and what spaces they are going to
01:45 give you, where they are going to try to threaten you.
01:49 Everything is possible.
01:50 I don't think that positions are defined by only certain qualities and especially in modern
01:57 football you see that a lot.
01:59 It must be difficult for Gabriel to understand considering he played every game last season
02:12 and he was one of your best players last season.
02:17 We have to focus on what is ahead and what is now and how we are going to evolve that.
02:23 There will be different relationships.
02:24 I know that Gabi will play a lot of games I'm sure and it's about bringing the competition
02:28 high and trying to make the team play better, better, better and better and be more dominant
02:33 and win more games.
02:34 That's the purpose of all of us.
02:36 Do you explain to someone like him why he's not playing?
02:41 Especially someone who has played a lot of minutes and games with us in the last year.
02:47 I don't know if he understands.
02:51 I told him and he understands the reason, whether he agrees or not.
02:56 That's something different but the best way to do it is when you play, just tell me how
03:02 blind and wrong I am.
03:03 On a similar theme, you used a lot of different combinations in the past few weeks.
03:14 At times the team has been naturally less fluid with the ball.
03:18 Is that something you are happy to sacrifice to work on these new ideas for the long term?
03:25 No I want maximum fluidity with the team.
03:28 The thing is there are teams that want to allow you to have more fluidity in certain
03:32 moments or areas and results are very driving to that.
03:37 Others that are going to allow you less.
03:39 We played three very different games because the City game was very different in terms
03:44 of fluidity.
03:47 We had moments in games against Forest and Palace that we had a lot of moments and others
03:52 that are very difficult when you are attacking 10 men in those spaces.
03:56 So fluidity is not probably the word that is going to come out like the best.
04:00 With the approach to the City game, would that be a game you look at and say, 'OK,
04:06 maybe if we're looking at Champions League we may approach things like that a bit more
04:11 than the way you approach Forest and Palace?'
04:14 Yes, for sure.
04:15 Every game is going to have different demands and is going to require different things from
04:20 us and that's why we have top players to try to accommodate them in the right roles
04:26 and spaces in relation to the game that we play.
04:30 On the injuries with Jesus and Sancheco, are you comfortable now that you've got players
04:35 who are of the quality where you are able to maybe play a different way and still be
04:40 effective?
04:42 In terms of their position?
04:44 Not just position but how you want to set up the team to play.
04:49 Yes, sure.
04:50 We have many more options and we have many more options that they can, within the formation
04:57 that we've been using, whether it's attacking or defending, that they can connect with each
05:02 other in the units in the way that we want, much more than we had the year before.
05:06 Should referees be as accountable to the referees on the fact that you lose a player for a game?
05:31 I don't really like the punishing mode to try to make somebody react because the mistakes
05:39 are for sure not intentional and we all make them so I don't think that's, in my opinion,
05:45 the solution.
05:46 There was a lot of emotion at the final whistle on Monday.
05:49 How do you keep that sort of... it seemed like it was a must-win three-pointer at the
05:55 end of the season, not the beginning.
05:57 How do you keep that sort of intensity going?
06:00 We want to win every game and we have to fight every game to deserve to win.
06:05 We were over the line, you have to celebrate it.
06:09 It's about the culture that we are building.
06:11 The demands here in this league is to win every game, that's it.
06:15 You cannot be satisfied when you don't.
06:18 As a high-profile Spaniard in this country, what's your take on the Spanish FA president's
06:30 decision to double down on his decision to kiss the Spaniard?
06:34 I already responded to that.
06:35 I apologise.
06:36 We covered that, Matt.
06:37 Sorry, it was the first question from Sky.
06:38 And finally we'll go to Issan from the Daily Mail.
06:39 With Tomi Asu's first yellow card against Palets, obviously it's to do with the throw-in,
06:49 does that make you reassess how you maybe time-manage the latter stages of games going
06:56 forward?
06:57 Yes, it's quite a lot of things that we have to manage.
07:02 What about if a winger picks up the ball because he wants to play fast and then he can't, but
07:06 then you decide to play a long throw, so you need the opposite full-back to come across
07:10 the pitch, get the towel and throw it.
07:13 Can we do that, Issan?
07:14 With Doug Reier on the bench against Palets, how did he react to being on the bench?
07:22 And with Aaron Ramsdale, how has he taken the new competition?
07:28 He's very good.
07:29 He's just arrived and he's settling in really, really well.
07:33 Aaron is building a really strong relationship with Aaron and I'm really happy with that.
07:36 Did David have any concerns about being on the bench?
07:40 Did he accept that?
07:41 No.
07:42 That's how it starts.
07:43 Good.
07:44 Thank you everyone.
07:45 We'll see you soon.
07:46 Take care.
07:47 Thank you.
07:48 Thank you.
07:49 Thank you.
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