Saturday 8 December 2018 19:00, UK
Unai Emery says he is happy with his Arsenal side after they came through a "tough" match to beat Huddersfield 1-0 at the Emirates.
Lucas Torreira scored an acrobatic goal from close range with seven minutes remaining to secure the three points and extend Arsenal's unbeaten run to 21 matches.
The win moved Arsenal into third, ahead Chelsea and Tottenham's matches later on Saturday.
"Tough match for us," Emery told Sky Sports. "I wanted to play with more rhythm in the match but they were moving with a slow rhythm and with all the passion we needed to play this [type of] match and at the end of it, we are happy with this victory.
"It's been a very big week for us and we wanted to win today for our supporters. We wanted to play better with a different rhythm in the match but we couldn't do that because there were a lot of stoppages in the 90 minutes.
"It's not just [difficult] for us, also for the opposition. Their plan was to play a very slow rhythm, go one-to-one in all the positions, which was not easy for us, and then a lot of long balls, second actions and a lot of stoppages in the match. For me, today was a very good victory in a very tough match."
It was not all good news for Emery though. Yellow cards for Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Shkodran Mustafi mean they will miss Arsenal's next league game, away at Southampton next Sunday.
That leaves Laurent Koscielny, who was on the bench against Huddersfield after seven months out injured, as the north London side's only available centre-back.
"We are going to rest for two days after this week and then we are going to prepare, first, for the match in the Europa League on Thursday and then the match in Southampton with the players we have," Emery added. "Next Sunday we are going to find the best first XI."
