Mikel Arteta hails Arsenal’s hunger after matching clean sheet record

Mikel Arteta says his Arsenal players are hungry to reach new levels of excellence after another landmark Champions League victory.

The Gunners took their winning streak in all competitions into double figures with a 3-0 victory over Slavia Prague, equalled a club record for consecutive clean sheets and broke a Champions League record when Max Dowman came off the bench aged 15 years and 308 days to become the competition’s youngest-ever debutant.

Arsenal also equalled the 1969-70 Leeds team, who until Tuesday night had been the only English side in European Cup or Champions League history to win their first four games without conceding a goal.

Despite a number of injury concerns in forward areas, the Gunners machine keeps moving forward and Arteta hailed the mentality of his players to always want more.

The team’s eighth clean sheet in a row equalled a club record dating back to 1903, and Arteta said: “That’s a long time ago, so it tells you about the difficulty of achieving it. There’s a lot of work there to achieve that.

“The most pleasing thing is probably not the record, it’s the mindset of the players. They are talking about how we can still do better. There were one or two situations that we could have resolved better (against Slavia).

“If we do that, we can keep improving and that record will have a bigger meaning.”

Arsenal had to weather an early storm from Slavia but were well on top by the time they were awarded a penalty after a handball by home captain Lukas Provod was picked up by the referee on review.

Bukayo Saka scored it and from that point on there only looked like being one winner, with Mikel Merino’s second-half double sealing the deal and ending a Slavia unbeaten home run which stretched back to a domestic cup defeat in April.

“We came to a place where they create a special atmosphere. You saw that from the beginning,” Arteta said.

“They (hadn’t) lost at home here all season. So they have that winning habit, and that’s very difficult to turn around. We needed to understand that.

“I think the team showed a lot of maturity again.”

Arteta had earlier picked out Dowman and Merino for praise in his post-match press conference but also spoke positively about Dutch full-back Jurrien Timber, who missed almost all of the 2023-24 season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury.

“(He is) extraordinary,” Arteta said.

“For me, he’s been phenomenal in every department. I think he’s taken his level and the team’s level to a different dimension.

“Again, his courage, the way he penetrates, the way he wins the duels, the way he understands the game, the way he wants to make things happen. He is a big example for the rest of his team-mates.”