Arsenal boss Arteta hails 'unbelievable' Nwaneri

Ethan Nwaneri shone at Preston grabbing a superb strike to help Arsenal to comfortable victory 

Mikel Arteta’s spoke glowingly about Ethan Nwaneri during his post-match press conference at Deepdale after his Arsenal side eased past Preston 3-0 on Wednesday evening.

Read on for every word the Gunners boss said as the north Londoners swept into the last eight of the League Cup 

On the attitude…

Very good. We talked about that, about playing with enthusiasm in this game, playing with the right attitude and commitment and they certainly showed that so I’m very happy to be in the quarter-finals.

On Ethan’s goal…

He did it yesterday in training so we’re used to that. He’s a big talent, he’s got the right attitude, he’s got the right players and context around him and we need to make sure that we put brick by brick in the right order but we have some player here.

On his future development…

He’s going to really dictate how fast that’s going to go but I’m really happy with him.

On Ethan’s character…

So much personality there, he wants every ball, he wants to make things happen. Outside and around he’s still a bit quiet as usual, he’s 17 years old, very respectful, his work ethic is tremendous and he loves what he does, you can tell that.

On Gabriel Jesus’ first goal of the season…

His first since January I think so it’s been a long time, that’s going to, I think, unlock that thing mentally, and move on, I think he had a good performance tonight.

On the half-time subs of Jurrien Timber and Mikel Merino…

That was planned. We have a lot of issues in the backline, we wanted to share the minutes because we lost Gabi, we lost Ben [White] as well on top of the other players so we have to make sure that we wanted to be competitive and we have to make sure as well that we protect players because we have a lot of games coming up now.

On Nwaneri making a breakthrough…

Certainly, he wouldn’t play tonight, he wouldn’t play three days ago against Liverpool, he’s showing every day what he’s capable of and you see his teammates, they give him the ball all the time, that’s a great sign. We have some player there.

 On Gabi Jesus’ first goal…

Very happy. I think it’s going to unlock that for him, he looks really happy. He’s performing, that attitude is there always, but he need that feeling that he can put the ball in the back of the net.

On Nwaneri’s skill and technique…

It’s unbelievable but he does it in training almost every day, he’s got this quality, this personality, he’s there to make things happen, he doesn’t care who he’s got around him, he needs to make the decision for himself, he does it and he scored a fantastic goal tonight.

On Saka getting minutes…

Yes because one, he’s in the rhythm, he prefers to have that exposure, he travelled with us so he always says that once I’m here I prefer to play a few minutes as well to protect Gabi [Martinelli] as well because he had a very big impact in the first half so it worked out well.