Arteta gets involved in rondo as Arsenal prepare for Lens
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta embarrassed Martin Odegaard ahead of the Gunners’ Champions League showdown with Lens on Wednesday night as he nutmegged the 24-year-old during a training drill. The north London giants will book their place in the knockout stages of the Champions League if they avoid defeat at the Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal have been in fine form this season and have stormed to the top of their European group after winning three of their four matches. The Gunners’ only defeat in the competition to date did come at the hands of Lens, however, with the French team overcoming the Premier League side 2-1 on home soil in October.
Arteta will be out for revenge against Lens before his team end the group stages with a trip to PSV in December. And ahead of his team’s latest showdown, the Spaniard joined in with a training session. The Arsenal boss is still only 41 years old and proved that he hasn’t forgotten the skills that once made him a top Premier League performer as he took part in a rondo drill.
Odegaard was one of the men in the middle and chased after the ball as players around the outside attempted to keep possession. And as the Norwegian closed down his manager to try and dispossess him, Arteta threaded the ball through the midfielder’s legs.
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Arteta was clearly pleased with his skill as he ran around with his fists clenched. And the ex-Everton player appeared to be preparing himself for a Cristiano Ronaldo-style SUI celebration, but composed himself instead.
“I am enjoying [playing in the Champions League], it is a great feeling”, Arteta said as he spoke to reporters in a press conference on Monday. “It makes you proud, it makes you feel that it is the level the club should be at. And we are competing really well, so let’s continue to do so. You have to sweat, dig in a lot and play well in games to deserve to win them. We are playing against really tough opponents.
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“PSV have won all of their games in their [domestic] league, they have only lost against us. Sevilla is a very tough place to go and tomorrow is going to be a really difficult game – but hopefully we can be better than them.
“We need to want to get to where we want to get. In order to do that we have to be really solid. We’ve been really, really solid. Game state is a big definer of that. You see that time and time again in the league or any other. In the Champions League what happened? We were really exciting. We scored early against PSV, we did that against Sevilla. That’s a big thing.”
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