Arteta hails Arsenal's "extraordinary" season

Mikel Arteta hailed Arsenal's first half of the Premier League season as "extraordinary" following their last-gasp victory over Manchester United which moved them five points clear at the summit.

The Gunners ran out 3-2 winners following Eddie Nketiah’s late effort but, despite their lead at the top of the table, Arteta insists closest challengers Manchester City remain the standard bearers.

Marcus Rashford had put United ahead only for Nketiah to equalise and Bukayo Saka to put Arsenal ahead.

The visitors hit back through Lisandro Martinez’s first goal for the club before Nketiah flicked home a stray Martin Odegaard shot in the closing stages.

The win moved Arsenal on to 50 points from their opening 19 games of the campaign – a record for the club at this stage of the season – eclipsing even Arsene Wenger’s invincibles by five points.

"Extraordinary," Arteta replied when asked on his thoughts on the first half of the campaign.

"It doesn’t get much better than that. We deserved the points that we have. I think we have played well enough to win most of the matches.

"But the reality is that we have things we can get better at. Attacking and defending in transitions. That’s the aim."

Arteta, who worked as assistant to Pep Guardiola before taking the reins at the Emirates Stadium, will now take his side to face City in the FA Cup fourth round on Friday night.

They also still have two league meetings to come and Arteta believes everyone in the division is still playing catch up with City.

"I know my team so well," he added. "They are good enough to play against these teams and they have done it. We talked about that in the last two or three days.

"We know our reality, we know still how much we have to improve, we know what’s taken us to