Ahead of his former club Arsenal's trip to London Stadium on Sunday afternoon, Łukasz Fabiański has The Last Word...
Especially in the recent history, the games always seem to have huge importance both of the clubs when it comes to the situation that they’re both in.
I think this game will be no different, actually, as both teams have a lot to play for, so hopefully there’s going to be another good one, and a memorable one for us as well hopefully.
I wouldn’t call it a special feeling, but I would say it’s a bit different. Actually, the game that I felt really different and special was the first one back at Emirates after I joined Swansea, which we won 1-0 in May 2015.
That was one when I could feel different emotions and could feel like it was different to any other game that I played before, or even after, and it was only because that was my first time back at the Arsenal stadium. After that, it felt quite normal, like almost any other game.
I remember Mikel Arteta when he came as a player for the first time to Arsenal and I remember that a lot of the boys at the time were very impressed with his leadership qualities.
From the very first day, he tried to be not only like a good player on the pitch, but at the same time, be an important voice in a in a changing room. So, it looks like it was already there, something that he was going to carry on into his managerial role. He has been a great player, but at the same time, you could see the leadership skills that are here today.
Thomas Vermaelen was the Club captain, but he suffered with injuries so he didn’t play that many games, so then the on-the-pitch captain was Mikel, and then after some time he took over as Club captain as well.
It was nine or ten years ago, so it’s hard to say if I knew he would become a manager because so much can happen in ten years. However, I remember Mikel was doing his coaching badges with the Welsh FA so when I was at Swansea, the group of coaches that was doing the coaching badges came over to the Swansea City training ground so I met him over there as well.
But it was funny because it was a bit of already like this different kind of conversation, like I could sense that I wasn’t speaking with Mikel the player, and that I was like probably already talking with the Mikel the manager.
I could sense the slight difference so I think, when you transition from the player to the manager, I think it’s important that in some way you have to kind of cut off the way you were as a as a player and you have to start to build up like the defences that you need for being a manager. So I think that I could sense a little bit of this happening when I met Mikel when I was at Swansea.
As a goalkeeper preparing to face Arsenal, you try to do as much as you can, really, to cover all of the aspects of what might happen in the upcoming game.
It’s always difficult because every game is different and there are always different things that can happen, but it’s just trying to prepare yourself in the best way possible. You do a lot of analysis on the team and on certain players and I think that’s more or less what you can do. There’s nothing else.
I’ve kept eight clean sheets and conceded 32 goals in 27 appearances in the Premier League season, so I was disappointed with the Newcastle game because it killed my stats.
I’m aware of that I’ve had a good season, so I was just disappointed with the Newcastle game, first by losing in that way, secondly because I did some mistakes in that game, and thirdly my data was a little bit worse than I was hoping for.
But if you look at the bigger picture, I think it’s been, again, a pretty consistent season for me. I believe I’ve been on a good level and I think the stats can back it up.
Because the way this season has been for us, the games that we are having are very close games, so it’s so important that you stay focused and you’re ready for one single bit in the game, which actually happened in the games just now against Fulham and Southampton.
More or less I had like one big thing to do which I was able to do and help the team, so then you have the positive outcome for the team.
Because of the situation we are in, we understand that we can’t try to play games like we tried to do against Newcastle, which is very open, very up and down almost like a basketball game.
We have to actually focus a little bit more on defending and try to keep the game very tight because it seems like we have to dig deep to get a result this season, but that’s the nature of this season and hopefully we are able to keep grinding the results out.
This season been has been different because there were times when we tried to play a little bit more expansive football, a lot more possession-based, and we put in some good performances, but then we lost the game.
So it’s about finding the right balance and I think if you’re in the situation like we are at the moment, if you look at the history of the teams that have been in this position and survived in the Premier League, it’s always about just making sure you defend properly, you suffer a little bit and then just try to get a positive positive result, rather than being too open.
So, that’s just understanding the moment and the situation. So hopefully this season we will be able to finish in a strong way, and then we can build on that coming into the next one, but first we have to finish this one.
