Arteta impressed by Arsenal 'desire' in draw at Bournemouth

Mikel Arteta said the 1-1 draw against Bournemouth was "a good start" to his tenure as Arsenal manager.

Dan Gosling's opener for hosts Bournemouth was cancelled out by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after the break.

It was Arteta's first match as Gunners head coach, having left the team in the hands of Freddie Ljungberg for the game at Everton last Saturday.

The former Manchester City number two is back at the club he played for with distinction, and has the task of lifting Arsenal from their current mid-table station.

The unfamiliar lowly position leaves Arteta with plenty to look at, and he was impressed by his players' resolve.

Arteta said on Amazon Prime: "I am pleased with a lot of things that I've seen today, and a lot of things that we practised that happened in the game.

"I'm not happy because I would have been happy if we'd won the game, that I think we should have. We had enough chances to put it to bed, I think. But it's a good start, I think.

"In terms of attitude, desire, aggression and commitment, it was better than I expected, to be fair. They're not used to playing at this rhythm but a lot of things I saw in terms of attitude were terrific."

 

December 26, 2019

The Spaniard added: "I'm still to learn a lot about the players, how we can help them more, what are the priorities for them to be more secure when they jump into the pitch. But we've just started, it's just three days there and we've tried to put some things in place and I think the majority of them were good today."

Asked what his objectives were for the rest of the season with Arsenal, Arteta said his goals were short term, with Chelsea and Manchester United their next two opponents.

"My only one now is to review the game and to find solutions to do better, to attack better, to concede less on the counter-attack, to defend better, and to prepare a good training session for them to improve them," he said.

"I don't look at the games against Chelsea or United - it's now. At the moment the urgency is now. We need an impact now."