In the second half of his pre-Crystal Palace press conference, Mikel Arteta explained the emphasis his analysts were placing on performance and circumstances to get a full picture of Arsenal’s level, before addressing questions about the importance of silverware and the form of Gabriel Jesus .

Here’s what he had to say…

What the detailed analysis of his team’s Arsenal games shows him so far…

The sample is smaller but if you compare games, for example what we did at home against Everton and how we played away against Everton (last season) and how we did today, we are much better. Against Fulham (compared to last season) 10 times better. Much better against a lot of resistance. The thing is, you need the reward of winning this game and that’s disappointing. In the last six games we have won four and drawn two. We deserve to win them all by a significant margin. And we are not happy because we want to win the six games because we deserve to win them.

How profound his team’s analysis is

I think after a game and a red card there is always a lot of noise. And then, probably a few days later, you can analyze the game and say, “Yeah, but you played with ten men.” But two months later, when you put all the data together, nobody’s talking about it anymore. And if you play 45 minutes without one player or two players or three players or seven defenders, no one can remember it. We have to do it because we need to understand a different perspective of the team.

Whether there was always the possibility of a dip in form given the pressures of the last two seasons…

The chance of ending up somewhere at the bottom is really high if you’re not at the top. I wouldn’t say small. The probability is probably the highest. Because being at the top of this league is the highest, the most difficult thing. After that, everything will be behind it. We want to be the first, we want to be the best and that’s how it works.

That you need to take a step back before moving forward again…

In terms of points or victory it is very difficult to predict. Performance is something different and that is exactly what we value. In the end we do everything we can to end up with the right to win games and have the highest probability. Whether you win or not depends on many factors.

Whether he has heard of the proposals to rename the European Super League…

Today? Yes. No, I’m sorry.

On many of his players who have yet to win a trophy and the impact that can have…

It gives you trust, faith. The fact that you did it is, in my opinion, contagious to the rest and it must be the first time you’ve done it. And besides, it’s hard to reproduce something if you haven’t done it before and feel the urge to do it. That’s a really positive thing too. Therefore we have to look at it from this perspective.

About how important it is for Gabriel Jesus to overcome his dry spell…

I’m really looking forward to that because he’s doing everything as best as possible. His effort, his energy, how he tries, how he wants to do it and he just has to be rewarded. Hopefully it will happen very soon.

On the question of whether Jesus is suffering from a crisis of trust…

I don’t know if it’s confidence, but obviously he has the desire to get the ball on his back and he’s starting to develop some momentum around that. He ends up playing in positions where he has to deliver those moments and he really tries hard.

On the suggestion that Ethan Nwaneri could play as number 9 and whether that is already an option…

No, it’s possible and I don’t see it now. You ask me about opportunities to play together, can we also play in different formations? So that’s it, nothing will happen now.