Mikel Arteta has praised Gabriel Magalhaes’ mentality after the defender was spotted celebrating a block in injury time of Wednesday night’s win over Lens.
Arsenal demolished RC Lens with a 6-0 win on Wednesday night, with Gabriel Magalhaes taking to Instagram after the game to post his revenge for Lens’ celebrations earlier in the group stage.
But before the match was even over, Gabriel displayed his emotions in an incident in injury time.
With Arsenal leading 6-0, Gabriel made a block to stop Elye Wahi from taking away the Gunners’ clean sheet, and he celebrated by turning to the crowd and cheering with his fists clenched.
The game was already won, and Arsenal were guaranteed to finish at the top of the group regardless of whether Wahi’s shot went in or not.
But Mikel Arteta was pleased to see the Brazilian’s commitment until the very end.
“When the team has that body language believing every game, every action the way we do, good things are going to come, and like the crowd they wanted more,” Arteta said.
“They celebrated, they play every single ball with us and when there’s that connection, it’s really powerful, the team wants to win, they don’t want to concede anything, that’s the mentality that we need to become better.”
Arsenal now have a dead-rubber game against PSV Eindhoven to conclude the Champions League group stage, but they’ll want to keep momentum going ahead of the festive period.
It will benefit the team if every player has the same attitude as Gabriel, continuing to give their all in every incident until the final whistle, even when the game is won.