Arteta praises outstanding performance by Jorginho in Arsenal’s 3-1 defeat of Liverpool

After Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Liverpool on Sunday, Mikel Arteta was full of praise for his team, and in particular Jorginho whose man of the match performance was instrumental in taking all three points.

The Italian international was superb, in what was probably his best performance in an Arsenal shirt, using all his experience and quality to help us to what was a hugely important result.

The 32 year old hadn’t started a league game since November, and the Arsenal manager revealed he’d played through the pain to help the team as he’s been suffering from an ongoing (but unspecified) physical issue.

“I’ve always said that he’s an example, a role model,” said Arteta.

“He’s been in a lot of pain as well, because he has an issue that he’s been carrying for months.

“He didn’t want to stop, he’s been playing with that, he’s been training as the first one in and the last one out, and for all the kids, for everybody at the club, you want to look in the mirror at somebody, just look at him and how he behaves.

“He’s won everything, and if you ask him not to play, or to play one minute like last week, he’s happy to go there. You ask him to play 98 minutes at the rhythm and he’s able to do that, so I’m really lucky to have players like this.

“Jorgi’s a really intelligent player, his biggest quality is that he makes the people around him better, he connects everybody, and he was unbelievable. I think he was man of the match.”

And speaking to the official Arsenal website as the celebration police poured scorn on the Gunners players, staff and fans celebrating a big win, Jorginho himself urged the supporters to make the most of it.

“We should enjoy this moment as well,” he said.

“We need to think about the next one but at the moment we need to enjoy this moment because that’s how it is I think, you focus on the next one the day from tomorrow.

“The supporters, they were behind us and we could feel it and it was just an amazing, amazing football match and an amazing day for us.

“It was really hard work, if we didn’t do that – we couldn’t win for sure. We knew we had to push the limit to beat them because they are a great team and that’s what we did and I think we deserved the win.”