Arsenal have been given a much-needed psychological boost after having beaten the champions and certainly look to be better equipped with greater squad depth and versatility than they were 12 months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great feeling,\u201d the Arsenal manager said with broad smiles on his face after their 1-0 victory over his former club.\u00a0His obvious delight is easily understandable as this victory represented his first points against his former employers, being also his Arsenal\u2019s first points at all against the champions since April 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could sense, it\u2019s been so many years without beating them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were all dancing and super happy. They go into the international break and the mood is much better. They\u2019re gonna have a few days off the ones who are not involved and it just sends everybody away until the next game against Chelsea away with the right feeling. It\u2019s great so I\u2019m really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the Gunners the win has served as the psychological motivation to bring the current team that one big step closer to their first Premier League since 2004 under Arteta truly decisive moves. This was the reason for its importance.<\/p>\n
Despite Arteta trying to play down the specifics of the psychological implications, he admitted this was important. Understandably his interpretations of previous games lost to his previous mentor\u2019s sides tended to be a bit generous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it 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. 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 [Takahiro] Tomiyasu and [Kevin] De Bruyne scoring. The team showed a real maturity today, that comes from experiences. Sometimes you need that to become a better team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta led them on a magnificent run with a superb first XI last season with all guns blazing for months, which left them drained at the final turn given how little they were rested. They finally ran out of steam.<\/p>\n
Arteta has since focused on giving the team more depth and variety, which was what the signing of Havertz was all about. The German\u2019s strategic pass to Gabriel Martinelli for the goal came only minutes after the former Chelsea star came on.<\/p>\n
Arsenal will now most certainly have more faith in their ability to go all out for the honors this campaign, even much more than before.<\/p>\n
However, that said, no one in their right minds should be foolish enough to believe that this is going to be the City for the rest of the season. Although looking slightly suspect with some key major absentees like Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne for the time being, they will no doubt return with renewed fervor like what they did last season.<\/p>\n
But for now, at least, Arteta can afford to indulge himself with a few well-deserved broad grins.<\/p>\n
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