Laura Woods has hailed how Mikel Arteta used Arsenal's opening-day defeat at Brentford last season to improve the team after they recorded yet another win.
The Gunners put three past the Bees on their own pitch on Sunday, just over a year after they'd lost to them 2-0 and copped huge criticism. Arteta's side were dominant from minute one as their new-look team recorded a sixth win in seven Premier League games to remain top of the table.
Last term, the Spanish coach was forced to pick up the pieces on the opening night, but was determined to use the experience as a positive. Rather than writing it off as a bad day at the office, instead he cited it as a contest which they could build character from.
Gunners fan Woods has praised the former midfield for his approach, telling talkSPORT : "I thought that Mikel Arteta summed it up really well. He was talking about last season, I was at that game when Arsenal lost at Brentford and there was just no spirit, no heart no desire.
"He said 'I don't look back at that game as an awful day, I look back it it as a building-character day'. I thought that just summed him up and that team.
"Alan Shearer said it on Match of the Day, he said from the very beginning they were right at it, they were hungry, they had desire, the attitude was better, they look like players competing to win every single ball. And I just thought that's why I'm enjoying them so much."
Arsenal were ahead within 17 minutes after William Saliba headed home from a corner. Gabriel Jesus then nodded home their second before half-time. Summer signing Fabio Vieira, who we've seen little of thus far, then smashed home a third from long range shortly after the interval.
Arteta spoke about the fixture at Brentford last season following Sunday's win and claimed experiencing difficult moments is all part of the process. He said: "It’s true that we replaced players with different players as well, we have to be honest with that and what a lot of people described as a bad day, as an embarrassing day, I looked at it as a character-building day.
"If you want to become a different team, you have to learn from those moments, to go through those moments and then days like today happen. Everybody is really happy in that dressing room, it feels with the way we play that we are enjoying our football and it’s another step."
Arsenal's next game, once domestic football reconvenes after the international break, will be a North London derby against local rivals Tottenham at the Emirates. Spurs sit one point behind the Gunners in third after an unbeaten start to the campaign.
