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Mikel Arteta used Amazon documentary to motivate Arsenal for ‘revenge’ vs Newcastle

  Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta celebrates during his side's Premier League win over Newcastle in May 2023.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta celebrates during his side’s Premier League win over Newcastle in May 2023.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta used clips from last season’s Amazon documentary to motivate his players for a ‘revenge’ win over Newcastle at St. James’ Park on Sunday.

The Gunners lost the corresponding fixture 2-0 last May in their penultimate Premier League game and ended up missing out on a Champions League place by two points to north London rivals Tottenham.

Amazon’s ‘All or Nothing’ documentary featured the aftermath of that defeat in great detail and Arteta showed his players the footage ahead of Sunday’s game, which his side won 2-0.

“We had to feel it,” Arteta said. “It wasn’t enough just to talk about it, we had to feel it, we had to see it, we had to recognize our faces. Not just the players but what it meant for the staff as well. That’s football. You can win or lose but that feeling that we didn’t do enough on the day, we had to put it right.

“I was looking at the video so I didn’t see their faces. You don’t have to be a genius to see it. The word was ‘pain’ and then the desire for revenge. I think they had that today in their bellies .

“When you have question marks you have to resolve them straight away. When you have the emotions we had last year in that dressing room, you have to feel them again, realize how nasty they are and then find a way to approach the game differently because demands were going to be different from last year.

“The boys did that extremely well so I’m really proud of them.”

Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard opened the scoring with a long-range effort after 14 minutes and he told Sky Sports: “Last year here was one of the toughest days in my career to be honest. After dropping a few points, after the Man City game, to come back and beat Chelsea and then come here and win again I think shows the mentality, it shows how far we’ve come.

“We have to keep going, we have to keep digging and fight until the end. I think we showed something special today. To come here and win is not easy, the way we did it as well. We had to be very smart, we have to be a bit ugly at times and I think this is a big step for us; a young team, coming here and doing all the things we did, I think it shows we’ve come a long way.”

And goalkeeper Aaron Ramsey admitted watching the documentary footage had helped motivate the Gunners.

“It (last year’s game) wasn’t mentioned until the meeting just before we left the hotel. The manager showed us a clip from the documentary last year, showed all of our faces, staff included, showing how hurt we were feeling,” he told Sky Sports.

“We had that burning desire as soon as we left the hotel that it wasn’t going to be the same today. It may have given us extra motivation. When we needed to dig deep, it really helped us.”