Mikel Arteta moved quickly to the point in his pre-Fulham news conference: Arsenal must park everything else and deal with Fulham first. Asked in the embargoed section of the briefing, the Arsenal manager said the players had already done exactly that after the Atletico Madrid match, turning straight to the next job in the dressing room.
“The players’ reaction immediately after that [Atletico] is, now it is Fulham, now it is Fulham, now it is Fulham, immediately in the dressing room,” Arteta said. He added that Arsenal have spent “nine and a half months” preparing for moments like this and are used to a tight turnaround between games. “I think it comes down to preparation,” he said.
The immediate challenge is less about theory than habit. Arsenal are in a run where one result can shape the next, and Arteta made clear he sees no point in looking beyond Fulham before the match is done. “We know that, we know what is at stake,” he said. “We need to push it and everybody has to lead himself and take ownership of the moment because the impact that you can have now is going to define the history of the club, and that is a very powerful thing to have.”
That urgency framed his comments on Martin Odegaard, who remains central to how Arsenal carry themselves in games with so much on them. Arteta said the captain brings energy, focus and standards that are hard to find, and that he does it “in any circumstances.” “He is the captain for a reason and he has a personality, an aura, a way to conduct and raise the standards that is very rare to see,” Arteta said. “And he does it in any circumstances.”
He also pushed back on any suggestion that Arsenal’s younger players are being defined by outside noise, saying Ethan Nwaneri was being criticized. The manager did not expand on that point, but it sat alongside his broader message that the squad has to absorb pressure rather than be shaped by it. That same theme ran through his answer when he was asked about Gabriel and the incident against Manchester City that the Premier League later said in retrospect should have been a red card.
Arteta did not hide from that history, but he did not treat it as a source of comfort either. “No, I don't feel lucky at it,” he said. In the end, that is the thread running through his entire build-up to Fulham: Arsenal do not get to lean on what happened against Atletico Madrid, Manchester City or anyone else. They have to show they can reset fast, carry their standards into the next match and keep doing it when the schedule leaves no room to breathe.
