Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was delighted for goalscorer Eddie Nketiah after victory over Nottingham Forest.
Nketiah struck the opener as the Gunners won 2-1 in their opening day Premier League clash.
“Eddie sums up what we want this season in terms of the squad,” said Arteta. “He was a player who was really disappointed not to start against Manchester City in the absence of Gabby, but he had an incredible impact in the game against City and he trained this week like a beast.
“A lot of players ask: ‘why am I not playing?’, and the thing is that Eddie is telling you: ‘look at all the reasons I’m giving you to play me’. When you play him, after you know you’re going to have that response because he’s not looking for excuses or anything, he’s looking at his own performance and what he can do for the team. This is the example that everyone has to look at.”
The manager also said: “It’s always very difficult to win the first game, there’s something special with it.
“You want to start well and we’ve done it, and I think we’ve done it in a really convincing way, even though at the end, because of that goal we conceded, we made it a little bit harder than we should have for ourselves.
“We were super dominant and created quite a lot of chances and we didn’t give them anything and that’s what we have to do, especially when teams want to come here and have a really low block and be really well set up.
“We found two ways to score, and after that we should have killed the game earlier so we don’t give any hope to the opponent, and that’s the next step.”
