Bukayo Saka confidently predicted that ‘this is the year’ Arsenal end their Premier League title drought after captaining the club to a 2-0 defeat of Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.
The Arsenal forward wore the captain’s armband in Martin Odegaard’s absence at the Emirates and was instrumental in the victory, doubling Arsenal’s advantage after Kai Havertz’s headed opener midway through the first half.
Mikel Arteta’s men never looked like allowing their visitors back into the contest and held firm to secure a comfortable win, their first of the competition after being held to a goalless draw by Atalanta last time out.
The result saw the Gunners rise to eighth place in the Champions League standings and extended the club’s unbeaten record in all competitions to nine matches this season.
The north London giants will be confident of making it ten when they return to the stadium on Saturday to face newly promoted Southampton, who have picked up just one point in the Premier League this season.
Clearly in good spirits off the back of the win, Saka caught up with Thierry Henry and the rest of the CBS Sports team to dissect the performance while also looking ahead to the challenges that await an in-form Arsenal.
Asked by Henry whether it could be Arsenal’s year to lift the Premier League trophy, Saka replied: ‘I don’t want to put too much pressure on us but I do think this is the year.
‘I think we’ve been close the last two years and, yeah, we’re getting closer. But yeah, this hopefully will be the year.’
Henry praised the work Arsenal’s attackers had been putting in when out of possession, which pleased Saka.
‘It’s good that you noticed that. The attackers are doing a lot of work as well for the clean sheets,’ the England international responded.
‘But yeah, of course, we have to do our job to help out the defenders.
‘It’s not easy as an attacking player. I want to be up the pitch and save my legs for the transition.
‘But when I look at the results and the results we’ve had this season, we’ve had a lot of clean sheets so it shows that it is working.
‘In most games we believe we can score in open play of set-pieces so as long as we score in most games, we can win.’
Speaking to Amazon Prime shortly after the final whistle, Arteta said he was delighted with his side’s ‘very dominant’ first-half showing against a PSG team ‘with a lot of personality’.
‘I’m really happy, obviously,’ the Arsenal head coach said.
‘We played a big opponent, a team that has a lot of personality that is really difficult to deal with, especially when you don’t have the ball.
‘But especially in the first half, we were very dominant and the second half was a different story.’
Arteta went on to reserve special praise for man-of-the-match Havertz, applauding the German’s ‘unbelievable’ intelligence and work ethic.
‘He’s been unbelievable,’ the Spaniard added.
His football brain, the way he understands space, his timing, the way he brings people together, he just gels the team
‘His work ethic is incredible and every time he’s around the box he’s a real threat. He’s one of our main players at the moment.’
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