Mikel Arteta said Arsenal were motivated by revenge in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Newcastle United after watching a video of last season’s painful defeat in the same fixture.
Martin Odegaard’s 14th-minute strike and Fabian Schar‘s 75th-minute own goal were enough to give the visitors a priceless win which cuts Manchester City‘s lead at the top to one point, albeit having played a game more.
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Newcastle beat Arsenal 2-0 last May on a hugely damaging night which effectively cost them Champions League qualification, the aftermath of which was caught on camera by Amazon’s “All or Nothing” documentary of the Gunners’ season.
The players held a team meeting earlier in the day on Sunday, during which they watched footage of the match again and Arteta believes this proved the catalyst for their much-improved display on Tyneside.
“We had to feel it,” he said. “It wasn’t enough just to talk about it, we had to feel it, we had to see it, we had to recognise our faces. Not just the players but what it meant for the staff as well. That’s football. You can win or lose, but that feeling that we didn’t do enough on the day, we had to put it right.
“I was looking at the video so I didn’t see their faces. You don’t have to be genius to see it. The word was ‘pain’ and then the desire for revenge. I think they had that today in their bellies.
