With a crucial match against Manchester City on the horizon, Mikel Arteta held his pre-match press conference at London Colney to chat about our upcoming trip to the Etihad.

The boss fielded questions on our approach to the City game, our mentality heading into the home stretch of the season, Saliba's fitness, and much more.

Here is everything he had to say:

on William Saliba’s injury…

There’s not been a real improvement, unfortunately for him. So, we are still waiting. We are still hopeful but obviously, it’s another week that has gone by and he hasn’t been able to train with the team.

on the injury itself…

I’ll leave that to the doctors to explain that to you.

on potentially preparing for the rest of the season without William…

Well at the moment we don’t have him. We are preparing for this game without him and the next game, obviously, it’ll probably come too soon as well. We have to go week by week for the moment.

on Granit Xhaka’s availability…

Granit has been out. Hopefully, he will be able to train today but he’s still a doubt.

on whether we have any other injury doubts…

No, the rest are okay.

on picking apart the mistakes from the Southampton draw…

Human errors. Players make a lot of brilliant decisions, and they make mistakes. The areas where you don’t make mistakes probably define the extent or the consequences of the mistakes, and obviously, where we made those mistakes, we were punished heavily.

But looking back at the last two games, taking that apart – we deserve to win both games, without a question of a doubt.

on looking at the human errors we’ve made recently…

We have made some errors, but we have managed to win the games. Those errors then probably get a little resolved but we have had some of them that we have managed to do that. But yes, especially certainly in certain areas, you have to minimise as much as possible because the margins then become much smaller.

on analysing the errors further from an internal point of view…

I don’t think it’s about that, it’s decision-making. Sometimes it’s execution, sometimes it’s a credit to the opponents as well who put us in positions to force those mistakes.

But as I’ve said we’ve done some in the past as well that I can remember, especially at home, that could have cost us something, but we have managed to win the games.

on if we still believe we can win the title…

One hundred per cent. But we knew from the beginning that City was the team to beat, probably with Liverpool, because of what those teams have done in the last six or seven years, they’ve fully deserved that credit and to be at the top.

We were the ones that wanted to be closing that gap as much as we possibly could, and we are toe-to-toe with them. We knew we had to go to the Etihad, we know that after that they are going to have another five very difficult games. That game is going to be really important - if it’s going to define the season, the answer is no.

on whether belief, confidence or mentality are the key ingredients it takes to win the title…

A lot – it plays a huge part. Obviously, the belief is there. When I look at how they train, how they reacted after that [result against Southampton], the mood in the dressing room, the way they defended each other in each moment.

We really want it and we’re going to show that again tomorrow night, but then you have to deliver in the right moment, the right performance and it has to be perfection because that’s what these last levels demand. It’s absolute perfection in every single ball.

on whether this is the biggest game Mikel has had to prepare for as a coach…

Now? For sure. But if you ask in my career, probably a final. It’s either lift the trophy or go home in tears. Those situations make you a better coach, they make you understand the team better and it’s just incredible to be in the position we’re in, trying to prepare the game to win it and this is what we’re going to do.

on whether it’s therefore it’s his second biggest game…

Very big. Let’s say it’s a very big game because it’s the one we have to play tomorrow.

On drowning out the noise of the title being in Man City’s hands…

We’ve been doing that for the last nine or ten months. Focus on what we can do, don’t get dragged out whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative, and be stable in our thoughts and in our process and be our best every single day to try and do that.

We don’t know the outcome, so what was written eight months ago probably is not relevant now because they said something that didn’t happen for eight months. It doesn’t matter.

On relying on the experience of Jesus and Zinchenko to get over the line…

For sure. I think experience is key when you’ve been in those moments, to handle those moments and to understand the importance of certain things when you are competing in a football match.

The capacity to transmit as those two players have done for the rest of the team - a lot of things that are very, very important. Some of the rest of them are young but they’ve played a lot of games already. 

On when he last spoke to Pep Guardiola…

Exact date? Probably the last time that we played. 

On whether Guardiola has been in touch with Mikel this week…

No.

On how Mikel plans to deal with Erling Haaland…

Obviously, we have worked on their threat as well as we have worked on their weaknesses and we know where they are. The issue with City is that they start with the goalkeeper - they are a threat when the ball is with him. You have to control every single player.

But we just focus on us: we know what they want to do, what they’re going to try to do and they can do various things. They can play with a box inside, they can play with a diamond, they can build the game with three, they can be asymmetric on one side, they can pull one out on the right and play a diamond, they can put [Kyle] Walker higher.

They can do so many things that you have to be able to adapt to, so you have to focus on certain principles to try and play the game how you want.

On whether the game against Man City is winner takes all…

No, I don’t think so. If we win tomorrow night we haven’t won the league, for sure.

On whether the winner would be overwhelming favourites…

It will shift a little bit, probably, in the percentage. But five games in this league, with the games we both have to play, are very tricky still.

On how we will overcome the nerves tomorrow night…

I think it’s more about the situation that in key moments in games, they haven’t gone our way. They could have been very different, and I still say even with those moments we decided to win the last two games, by quite far, but we haven’t been able to do that.

That efficiency is key. In front of goal, there were some moments we should have done much better and we conceded some sloppy goals.

On how Mikel is involving Jesus and Zinchenko to utilise their experience…

In a very natural way. Since they came in after two or three weeks, they said - because of where they’ve been - they said ‘we can win this league’.

So it’s not something we have started to feel or they have tried to transmit - and I didn’t know that but they said that to me a few months ago. It’s been going on since August, it’s not something that now you rely on, this process has been coming for a long time.

On whether it would be exceptional for us to win the title from where we were at the beginning of the season…

Yeah, but the biggest game is the next one, and the biggest game of my career was the game we played against Southampton because if we had won that game, we would have been in a much better position.

Then it will be City and then it will be Wolves, the last one. Is it the biggest one? Yeah. So that it going to change every single week.

on whether he would have preferred to face City a few months ago…

We cannot change that. But they have been in incredible form and look where we are in the table still. That means that we have been in incredible form as well. That's where we are.

on whether this game is an opportunity for our players to thrive…

Yeah, it's going to be a tough night and challenge. Yes, but the opportunity is incredible for us. We knew from the beginning, if you want to win the Premier League, you have to go to Spurs and you have to beat them.

You have to go to Chelsea and you have to beat them. You have to go away from home and you have to beat them. This is what we've been doing. That's why we are here.

Now we have to go to City and we have to beat them. If you want to be champions, you have to win those matches. It's as simple as that.

on whether we have to focus more on beating City’s game or playing our own game…

We have to focus a lot on ourselves, but we still need to understand what they can do. We have to be prepared for those changes, which is a lot because of what they can do in the beginning, they can do that in 20 minutes, at half-time, and in the last 20 minutes.

You have to be really prepared for that. But this cannot absorb your energy to be constantly adapting to what they do and we have to focus on our strengths in how we can cause them problems.

on scoring against City in their first title-winning season…

You have to be very dangerous to score a lot of goals.

on whether he can predict what City will do on Wednesday…

The answer is no because I don't know their lineup! Once we have the lineup, we will have more of a rough idea but it depends on who they play. They can do something different, just like we can.

on some of the mistakes made the last time we faced City…

There are margins. You can't give anything away. That's for sure. Big teams, they punish you straight away. For many periods in that game, we did really really well and we deserved much better.

But again, we had one or two moments that we gave them, and in those moments, the game was over.

on whether we’ll have to modify our approach in this game…

That's what we do every game in certain areas. Are we talking in ball possession or talking out of possession, in transition moments? Are we talking about the restart? Are we talking about set pieces? Are we talking about the emotional state? You have to shift it all the time.

Every opponent demands and questions you differently and gives you different opportunities. And this is no different with that team. Obviously, the quality of the opponent is as good as it gets anywhere in the world, that's for sure.

on how Erling Haaland has changed City…

When you look at the numbers, there's no comparison with anybody else. He's able to produce that because the setup is done the right way for him, the players that he's got around him, the way he is coached, as well as obviously the qualities that he has.

With him, they have the capacity to play in different ways. Because when they play really far from your goal, they have the capacity to exploit open spaces. And when they are attacking low blocks, now they have a different threat, because they are a very physical team right now.

Obviously, preventing it at the source is probably the best recipe [to stop Haaland scoring]. 

on whether he’ll try something completely new ahead of City…

We will see tomorrow.