Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta faced the media ahead of his side’s game against Leicester City this weekend.

The Gunners are on a high after a spectacular comeback against Benfica last night. We looked on the brink of elimination, but a combination of Kieran Tierney, Bukayo Saka and captain fantastic Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang saved the day.

Arteta, predictably, was delighted with his skipper. Auba has had a tough week after he missed three easy chances in the first-leg. He received a ton of criticism and many even urged the Arsenal boss to drop him for the game yesterday.

Arteta ignored all of that. He has revealed now that he noticed something about Auba in training a day before the game against Benfica, and that convinced him that his skipper would be fine for the game in Greece.

Arteta: Auba was really upset

He told Arsenal.com: “The week before when we played Benfica, he had three big chances and I am not worried about him missing them because I know if he gets in those positions, he is going to be scoring consistently – this is what he has to demand of himself.

“If we have Auba at his best, as a team we obviously have a much better chance to be successful.

“Sometimes when you go through difficult moments, you can have those difficult moments and get into a sad mood and I think that’s the worst thing you can do because nobody has to feel sorry for themselves when you’re having those moments.

“What you have to do is get upset, get angry, work harder and approach the situation and face it. Face the challenge in a way that creates more motivation and more hunger to do it and I think in recent weeks I’ve seen that reaction.

“For example, in a training session before we played here he missed a penalty and he was really upset. Instead of getting sad, he got upset and I said to the coaching staff that I like that and that he would be fine tomorrow. When you have that mentality, I think that’s the right way to approach it.”

Arsenal Insider’s view:

A few poor games won’t change the fact that Aubameyang is a world-class centre-forward. He is one of the best strikers in Europe and his performance last night showed exactly that.

Auba stepped up when we needed him the most. His movement and finish for his opener was outstanding and the way he didn’t panic when he got the chance in the final few minutes of the game shows just how good he is.

Arsenal fans and Arteta are absolutely delighted with Aubameyang’s performance. Hopefully, he can carry this on in what has been a very difficult season for him – both on and off the pitch.

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