Arteta's pride at going seven unbeaten in 21 days

After navigating his team through seven games in 21 days and remaining unbeaten in all of them, Mikel Arteta praised his players for raising their consistency to a new level.

A 3-1 win against Southampton rounded off a hugely hectic period for the club, as we battled in three competitions against a range of opposition, and managed to record five wins and two draws in that time, including victories in the north London derby and against Paris Saint-Germain.

And with us now heading into the international break just a point behind league leaders Liverpool despite all the challenges, Mikel is thrilled his squad have adapted to every challenge and come out the other side in an incredibly strong position.

“It’s been a really tough period since the last international break in terms of fixtures, the amount of injuries we had and teams we had to play,” he said after the Southampton win. “But the team shows an incredible capacity to adapt to various contexts. They are really willing, they really want this and I’m really happy where we are.

“This period required something else, something that we haven’t done in the past. For the amount of injuries and with the schedule we had to play, and we played certain moments with 10 men as well. It doesn’t matter, there’s no excuses. We adapted to that, we faced it and we went for it, and I love that character from the team.”

Once again we had to dig deep after Cameron Archer put the visitors ahead, but Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka all netted to swing the game around and send us into the international break on a high.

After being able to add Martinelli, Leandro Trossard and Mikel Merino into the fray on the hour mark to give us a boost, he highlighted the strength of his bench, and also the depth of his leadership group with Bulayo thriving as captain, as he moved onto nine goal involvements this term with his strike and two more assists.

Assessing the 90 minutes, he said: “We fully deserved the points. The first half was unbelievable, the dominance, the amount of situations and chances we generated from open play and set pieces. We didn’t manage to score and without the lead, the second half was going to be different.

“We started a bit sloppy with the ball in the second half and the game was a bit more open, and then we conceded the goal and then it’s game on. We’ve thrown away everything we did in the first half and we had to play in a different context and the team showed again an incredible capacity to adapt to play with such composure and determination to turn things around.

“The game was in a stage that needed something else and we had to change the energy on the pitch, and the crowd as well, and we certainly did it.

“I think [Bukayo] is really enjoying the role and the way he’s driving the team, the respect and admiration he’s got from his teammates. If you want to be one of the best players, you have to turn up when things are difficult and when it matters, and he’s doing that at the moment.”