Preston Boss: Arsenal Aren’t Up There By Mistake

By The Editor
on 31st October 2024

Preston Paul Heckingbottom boss waxes lyrical on Arsenal’s display…

Preston boss Paul Heckingbottom praised Arsenal’s professionalism off the ball in the Gunners’ 3-0 win against his side in the Carabao Cup, BBC Lancashire reports.

Arteta rang the changes for the cup tie at Deepdale, with Mikel Merino, Gabriel Martinelli and Jurrien Timber the only survivors from last week’s clash against Liverpool.

Despite that, Heckingbottom highlighted to his players that Arsenal are competing at the upper echelons of European football not just because of their talent.

The former Sheffield United boss highlighted a specific action of Gabriel Jesus sprinting back stop the hosts taking a quick throw in while the score was 3-0.

Heckingbottom, who lost to Arteta 5-0 at the Emirates Stadium last season, wasn’t surprised by what he saw.

“I’ve said to the players it’s great to test yourself against the best team, but I think what people underestimate until they face them is how good these teams are without the ball,” he said.

“We really struggled with the ball first half because of how intense they were. But I was still convinced we were letting ourselves down with the ball.”

Despite ringing the changes further throughout the encounter and the fact that we raced to a 3-0 lead, the team’s intensity didn’t drop with a clear desire to keep a clean sheet.

Arteta fielded Tommy Setford in goal, an 18-year-old with very little senior football who’s been training with the first team since his summer move from Ajax.

I’d imagine the players were even more keen to protect the teenager and make sure they limit the attempts at goal from the Championship side.

“For me, it’s me making sure we take the learnings from it. I mean, they were 3-0 up, we win a throw-in and Jesus sprints to stop us taking a quick throw-in.

“They did to us what we’ve been doing to teams of late, but we’re doing it at Championship level and they’re doing it at Champions League level.

“It shows they’re not there by mistake,” Heckingbottom added. “They’re not classed as one of the top teams because they’ve got expensive players or they handle the football well, they work really hard as well.”