Mikel Arteta on Arsenal's top-four hopes: "It's very possible. Looking back, I've been back a few years and seen a few examples of things like this happening at the end of the season. The longer the game is close, I am hopeful."
Friday 20 May 2022 15:40, UK
Mikel Arteta maintains Arsenal's top-four hopes are "very possible" as they hope for Norwich to do them a favour against north London rivals Tottenham.
The Gunners come into the final day of the season on Sunday following back-to-back defeats which have left them two points behind Spurs in the race for the Champions League, needing to beat Everton at the Emirates and hoping the relegated Canaries can give them a helping hand at Carrow Road against their oldest rivals.
Norwich go into the game having lost five of their last six home games and have conceded 17 goals in that time. But having watched Crystal Palace put up a fight at Goodison Park on Thursday night in what was largely a dead rubber for Patrick Vieira's side, Arteta remains confident it is "very possible" the odds could be upset at Carrow Road on Sunday.
"[The Everton game] gives me more encouragement about what can happen on the last day at Norwich. This only happens in this league, it's what makes this league so incredible. In many other countries, with nothing to play for you don't see performances like this [from Crystal Palace] - it makes us hopeful something can happen.
"It's very possible. Looking back, I've been back a few years and seen a few examples of things like this happening at the end of the season. The longer the game is close, I am hopeful.
"We are back in Europe, we don't know where, hopefully it will be in the Champions League - we'll do what we have to do and we will be cheering for Norwich."
Before opening up for questions, Arteta began his final pre-match press conference of the season with a speech about his side's progression, in spite of their disappointment to drop out of the top four in the final week of the season.
The 40-year-old highlighted the progress Arsenal have made to remain in the hunt for the Champions League into the final matchday, having finished eighth in their last two seasons, and pointed to the future which he said would require additional resources for investment in the "depth and quality" of the playing squad.
He said: "It has been a long journey and a very challenging one this season, but I think we have come a long way as a club. As a team I think we have transformed the energy, vibe and expectation of this club again and we have done it together.
"I have hope and expectation to move this club to the place it deserves. We have done it the way we predicted with the project we set a year ago, with a lot of young players, with senior players and with our crowd in our stadium with a real sense of connection around the place.
"After [the weekend] we will take the club to the next level and that is the ambition. In order to do that we have to have a very clear plan again about how we want to do it and execute it.
"It is no secret we need resources and we need to increase the quality and depth of the squad, as long as we maintain at the same time who we are as a club and the people we have next to us. That will be the challenge the following season, but hopefully in front of our people we have a great day.
"We are going to have certain resources, not unlimited. With those, we have to do what we have to do in the best possible way. We don't know what the rest of the teams will, obviously it will be challenging, it's not a top three but a top eight or 10, but we have to find a way to do again what we did last summer."
