Speaking at his pre-game press conference on Friday, Arteta stated that his players need to maintain their concentration despite not being in charge of the title race.
As he gets his team ready to take on a struggling Manchester United on Sunday, Mikel Arteta says Arsenal must hold onto the hope that they can upset Manchester City and win the Premier League.
The Gunners lead second-place City by one point, but the reigning champions still have a game in hand and can clinch the title with three straight victories.
Arsenal has a dismal record at Old Trafford, having just won once in the league since 2006. However, they will come up against a United club that is struggling and has fallen apart under manager Erik ten Hag.
Speaking at his pre-game press conference on Friday, Arteta stated that his players need to maintain their concentration despite not being in charge of the title race.
“We have to think it is going to work and what’s going to work is that we try to be better than our opponents and beat them and the final outcome, that will be something else,” the Spaniard said.
“At the moment that is not in our control. We know the difficulty in our history when you look at what we’ve done over there (at Old Trafford) so we’re going to have to be at our best to earn the right to win the game.”
Arteta warned that Man United remain dangerous despite winning just two of their past 10 league matches.
Man United forward Alejandro Garnacho thought he had won the reverse fixture at the Emirates Stadium in September, but his late goal was ruled out for offside and Arsenal scored twice in the final minutes to win 3-1.
“That tells you the difficulty of facing them, their quality,” said Arteta.
City, chasing an unprecedented fourth straight Premier League title, travel to Fulham on Saturday, with the chance to leapfrog Arsenal before the Gunners kick off in Manchester the following day.
“They’ve been on an unbelievable journey in the last 10 or 15 years but we want to change that. We’re trying to do everything we can to improve and get better and better,” said Arteta, who previously worked as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at City.
“You have to keep improving and try to be better than them when you face them head-to-head and in a long, long, long season with a lot of demands in this league.
“It’s been an unbelievable journey (for Arsenal) in every sense with a lot of changes. We have come far from where we were, that’s true, but there’s still a lot to come.”