Mikel Arteta was quick to praise his goalscoring midfield duo of Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard following Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League.
A win on Wednesday night all but guaranteed that the Gunners would reach the last 16 of the competition, with only a telling loss to Girona in their final game and notable results elsewhere seeing them crash out of the top eight.
ArsenalThe triumph over the Croatian giant was relatively simple, and Rice put them in the lead in the second minute. Their dominance was further rewarded when Kai Havertz doubled the lead with a header on the hour mark and Odegaard added some polish to the scoreline in stoppage time to end their run of goals.
The Gunners skipper has not scored in a game since the end of November during the 5-2 demolition of West Ham United, having gone without a goal in his previous 13 games in all competitions.
“You could see it from the way Martin celebrated [that] he had the anger and the desire to do it,” Arteta said afterwards view of the Norwegian man of the match at the Emirates Stadium.
Rice also went into Wednesday’s clash on a barren run, having failed to get his name on the scoresheet in Arsenal’s last seven matches, but scored his first goal after a fine effort Champions League goal.
“His intent, purpose, especially attacking the positions he occupies and the way he drives the ball. There is another bite to his game and he could have scored two goals today,” enthused Arteta.
“Over the last couple of weeks he’s had some big, big open scoring opportunities to impact the game, so overall I’m really happy because we need to impact the game from those positions and he’s certainly capable of doing that.”
Arsenal let go of a two-goal lead during last weekend’s 2-2 draw with Aston Villa as they stumbled in Premier League title race, but return to home action on Saturday when they visit Wolverhampton Wanderers.
READ THE LATEST ARSENAL NEWS, TRANSFER RUMORS AND GOSSIP
