Arsenal kept alive their Premier League title ambitions over the weekend by overcoming Newcastle United with a 2-0 win. The trip to Tyneside was named the Gunners' most difficult test of their remaining four fixtures, but Mikel Arteta's men were victorious.
Goals either side of half-time from Martin Odegaard and a Fabian Schar own goal meant the north Londoners moved only one point behind Manchester City at the top of the table.
"I think the word to describe it is pride," Arteta said on the win. "When you have question marks you have to resolve them straight away. When you have the emotions we had last year in that dressing room, you have to feel them again, realise how nasty they are and then find a way to approach the game differently because demands were going to be different from last year.
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"The boys did that extremely well so I’m really proud of them."
The victory at St. James' Park also marked the first clean sheet in nine games, something that was significantly aided by Gabriel Magalhaes' availability. The defender was a doubt for the game after being forced off in the win over Chelsea last week, but was selected from the off alongside Jakub Kiwior.
However, one player who continued to miss out is William Saliba. The Frenchman has now missed the last eight games after suffering a back injury against Sporting CP in March.
It remains unclear whether he will be available for this weekend's clash with Brighton & Hove Albion, but the defender is yet to be ruled out for the season. "Not a lot of progress. He's feeling better every day but he's still not been able to have any activity around the first team so we don't expect him to be with us," the Spaniard explained.
"We are not there yet today [ruling him out for the season], because we're always hopeful and players are pushing to play. If that's the case at some stage we'll announce it. But hopefully that's not the case."
Elsewhere, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Mohamed Elneny are the two long-term absentees. Tomiyasu is facing missing out on the start of next season while Elneny will miss the remainder of the current campaign following surgery on his knee.
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