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Talk of Arsenal being champions-elect ‘takes focus to wrong place’, says Arteta

Mikel Arteta says nobody is more driven than him to win the Premier League this season as he promised his Arsenal players would not be distracted by talk of them as champions-elect.

I don’t think anybody has probably more motivation, more hunger, more desire for us to go all the way and win it [than me]. But we know that the only way to do it is focusing and being very present in the moment and doing everything that we have to do today … then do it better tomorrow. That’s the only thing we can control. The rest is just things that don’t add any value to us and they can take the focus to the wrong place.

It is talking every single day about what we have to do, what we are doing, what we can improve. We know how tough it’s going to be on Sunday and if we start to prepare on Sunday it’s too late. So we already start to prepare after our Champions League win over Inter Milan on Tuesday.