Every Word From Mikel’s Post-Palace Press Conference | Press conference | News

Mikel Arteta had a lot to think about after another memorable away game on Saturday.

After our 5-1 win at Selhurst Park the manager was asked about our form, Gabriel Jesus’ run and performance, but he began by answering questions about Bukayo Saka’s injury.

Here is a full transcript of his post-game press conference:

When Bukayo Saka took a hit…

He felt something in his hamstring, couldn’t continue and needs to be checked out. That’s why we’re very worried about it.

How bad it could be…

It’s very hard to say now – they tested him internally, but it’s very hard to say how bad it is.

On the loss of Saka to injury after the return of Riccardo Calafiori and Declan Rice…

And Raheem too, we lost Raheem yesterday. We don’t know how long either. So losing two players in 24 hours is not good. Unfortunately, with the amount of games we play every three days with this schedule, it doesn’t surprise me, but the team will respond to it.

Gabriel Jesus’ top scorer week…

The beauty of football is that these things happen. He scored the same number of goals in 45 games in three days, he scored five goals and he could have scored a hat trick today. A lot of credit goes to him because he put in so much work, so much confidence in what he was doing, and he was patient and was rewarded for it.

In contrast to last week’s game against Everton…

We were clinical today because in many things we were better than in the other game, but that’s football. We were so determined today, we were so good at scoring in different ways and in different phases, the way we wanted, and we didn’t concede any more goals because David made two incredible saves.

If Kai Havertz and Jesus playing together led to a sacrifice in our defense…

Yes, because they were more aggressive than in the first game, which is what we expected, but we didn’t know what sequences we had to set and what spaces we had to create. So in the end we played too much as David was very close to his own goal and against them it’s a really bad game and we adjusted a few things. When Rice came on he changed the game, he gave us more dominance, still the same threat but we were much better.

If Jesus can carry on…

It has to be this way, we have to push him now and let him go and stand behind him. He’s had some difficult moments and as a striker it’s not easy and you’re in the spotlight a lot, but again he deserves credit. His work ethic, the way he came back in the summer, he was a completely different player and now he’s being rewarded, sometimes it takes time.

Whether Saka would have suffered the same injury as at the start of the season…

I’m not sure if it’s exactly the same or the same leg. It is the third minor injury; I don’t know how big this one will be, but he already had two of them.

If we like to give up control to score more goals…

I like to be dominant in the right areas, I don’t like to admit much. We haven’t conceded anything in four games, today we conceded more, especially because we missed two big chances. We always want balance and if you win, everything is fine.

How he feels at the end of the game…

I’m very happy that we won, we needed this win, especially after the two draws, but in general there were no defeats in the last seven games if you look at the ten games. We won five and drew two and we deserved to win them all, so it’s good.

If he thought Havertz would go back to midfield…

He can be, he can play in either pocket. Especially given the way they play and expecting a player to like him, we wanted to do something different. Because of the way they were set up it wasn’t going to work so I had to change it, but overall he’s a player who can play well in a lot of areas.

How to Keep Jesus Motivated in Difficult Days…

You have to prepare for the opportunity, that’s all. If you fail to prepare when you have the chance, it won’t happen, and that’s clear. So you want it and you want it early and sometimes it won’t happen, you have to push through and go again and you don’t see the reward, it’s like looking in the mirror after a day at the gym or a week or a month. Sometimes it takes time and then suddenly everyone is telling you that you look different and much better, that you look healthier and that good things are happening now. I think it’s a good example to understand what Gabby did.

Whether this is our best chance of winning the league…

At the moment we are not there yet and they still have a few games to play. It’s so difficult for any team to win in any competition, so anything can happen. We want to put our all into it and compete like we do in every single game. Let’s see what happens. We’re not even halfway there yet!