Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta says David Luiz’s injury ruined an otherwise perfect day as the Gunners won 2-0 at Newcastle in the Premier League.
What Mikel Arteta said about David Luiz’s injury
With goals from Mohamed Elneny and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in both halves, Mikel Arteta’s men put the Europa League loss against Villarreal behind their backs and retreated to ninth place in the Premier League standings. However, David Luiz left the field injured early in the second half, as he returned to the Premier League after about six weeks.
When asked if the Brazilian would play again this season, he said they knew. He sensed something in his hamstring, so this is not good news. He put in such a shift to return to the team in the last few weeks after knee surgery, which is a real shame. Aside from the injury to David Luiz, he thinks this is all they wanted this afternoon. they wanted to keep the team fresh, players with the right mindset to play the game and be able to focus right on today, and he thinks they had a really strong performance. From the start, they dominated the game and got the three points we need, and that helped on Thursday as well.
They deserve respective chance
Mikel Arteta admitted that the performance from his players against Newcastle means he has positive qualifying headaches for the return match against Villarreal on Thursday, with a 2-1 sideways backlog on aggregate. Some of them had strong actions, he said, of eight fresh faces on his side. They’ve been preparing really well all along, they deserve their chance and he’ll think about it if everyone comes up on Thursday and makes the right decision.
Arsenal is going up
In addition, Mikel was delighted to see Pierre-Emerick in her bosom. He said they thought he couldn’t handle it. On Thursday and the days before he really wrestled, he only managed to play 10 or 15 minutes, but after a few days he started to feel better and it’s good to see that he was okay today. He performed well, he scored a goal, so this is a real push.