Arteta has a ‘tasty’ arsenal to end a ‘big week’ with a win at Chelsea

Facing Tottenham, Bayern Munich and Chelsea within a week – a run in any part of a positive return but a battle that could have felt better that they could have felt better.

After a superb performance in beating rivals Spurs before sending Bayern to the Emirates, Sunday’s clash was always going to be difficult to recover from in the recovery period.

And the preparations further hit the key center of Center-back William Saliba who reigned in a knock taken in training – the FRANCE International set for further tests.

Given that context, a 1-1 draw ensured by Mikel Merino’s header would have left the Gunners five points clear of a poor result. But seeing his side play against 10 men for most of the match following Caice Caises’ Red Red, Mikel Arteta also admitted that a chance to move the lead further was lost.

“It’s a big week, starting with the Derby,” he said. “After playing Bayern Munich three days later (and) we lost players in the games.

“Today, for example, we had to play a partnership (in defense) that we didn’t play before in a difficult match.

“The captain is not here yet (Martin Odegaard), the nine is still not here (Viktor Gyokeres), Kai (Troso) is also in midweek, but the team has to respond to that.”

Odegaard and Glenetes came off the bench for the gunners in Chelsea’s second half.

“I think overall it was a positive week because the difficulty was great,” added Arteta.

“But there was this flavor that we needed today and we could have won the game and we didn’t. That’s a point to learn from it.”