Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has reflected on last season's crushing 2-0 defeat against Newcastle United ahead of today's trip to St. James' Park.
The north Londoners lost on Tyneside in the penultimate match of the 2021/22 campaign, allowing local rivals Tottenham Hotspur to pip them to UEFA Champions League qualification.
"We were desperate to win, you know that we had an incredible opportunity to get into the Champions League after the run that we had and we got that crucial moment - we lost some very very important players, we had to change the team a lot," Arteta said in his pre-match press conference ahead of today's game.
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But Arsenal bounced back from their disappointment before starting this season in near-perfect fashion, picking up 50 points from a possible 57 in their opening 19 Premier League fixtures. Of course, they were unable to sustain that kind of form and now sit four points behind league-leaders Manchester City going into the final four games.
Arteta's side need to clinch all three points against the Magpies today if they are to keep their faint hopes of beating City to that title alive and the Spaniard has admitted that it will be a drastically different game compared to the one 12 months ago. "It is a very different game," the Spaniard said.
"It was a year ago with different players, a different game but we’ll have to play much better than we did last year, that’s for sure."
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