Mikel Arteta praised the “aura” that Eberechi Eze has brought to Arsenal, after the player rejected joining Tottenham and then scored a hat-trick against them.
After Leandro Trossard’s goal in the 36th minute of Sunday’s match, Eze scored the first hat-trick in a North London derby in 47 years, with Richarlison’s sublime long-range goal as Tottenham’s only response.
Eze chose not to sign for Tottenham when he left Crystal Palace in the summer.
Things happen for a reason. And after the international commitment, he had two days off, and after a day he wanted to train, and he wanted to improve, and he wanted to do extra practice and he asked me questions about this and that.
Mikel Arteta
Eberechi Eze celebró su hat-trick contra el Tottenham.Arteta added: “When a player has so much talent, and his desire is at that level, then these things happen. And he completely deserves it. I am very happy for him, because from the day he arrived, he brought something more to the team.”
“So it’s a joy, it’s an aura that this team needed and I hope it gives him and the team a lot of confidence, that at any moment he can win us a game. That’s the ability he has and he certainly needs to fulfill that talent.”
Arteta played down the significance of Arsenal opening up a six-point lead at the top of the Premier League after thrashing Tottenham.
On a weekend where both Manchester City and Liverpool, the reigning champion, were defeated, the Gunners capitalized in a convincing way to pull away from Chelsea at the top and when asked what the difference meant, Arteta said: “In this league? Not much”.
“We are doing very well. We have been very consistent and that’s it. I mean, when you look at the results, whether they win or lose, the difference in the score and what actually happens in the games is very small.”
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“We know. We need the players back immediately today. We have Noni Madueke back on the field, which is great, but we are still missing many important players and we are going to need them all.”
After conceding a goal in the 94th minute that resulted in a 2-2 draw against Sunderland before the international break, Arsenal returned to winning ways and Arteta said: “In the end, against Sunderland, we lost two points in the last play of the match and we went to the international break with that bitter feeling because we didn’t concede any goals and we had had ten consecutive victories [before that]”.
“We wanted to get back to winning ways and the North London derby and today’s performance, it’s a good start.”
