Mikel Arteta and Kai Havertz in full agreement over “world-class” Arsenal star

Mikel Arteta lavished praise on Jorginho following the playmaker’s performance in Saturday night’s emphatic 4-1 win over Newcastle.

The Gunners bounced back from their surprise defeat at FC Porto on Wednesday night in style by thrashing the Magpies to stay in touch with Liverpool and Manchester City at the Premier League summit. An own goal from Sven Botman started the rout with Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka and Jakub Kiwior also getting on the scoresheet.

While plenty of plaudits went to Havertz – who grabbed a goal and an assist – and Saka post-match, Jorginho’s performance certainly didn’t go unnoticed. The Italy midfielder pulled the strings for Arsenal and was influential in downing the visitors, who grabbed a consolation goal through former Gunner Joe Willock late on.

He was singled out for praise by Arteta during the Spaniard’s post-match press conference, with the Arsenal chief alluding to the fact that he felt it would be the perfect match for the “world-class” veteran to strut his stuff.

He said: “He’s a top player, especially when the opponents have certain behaviours or certain set-up. The way I can imagine the game, he is going to have a big impact, but I think you have to do it at this level and when he’s not playing consistently, credit to him because he was magnificent today, again.”

He added: “He is certainly [world-class] but I think individually today we were outstanding in the way we played and we raised the bar again. Newcastle are a top side, they are really well-coached and it’s very difficult to do what we’ve done today, to have them in the positions and to make them suffer like we’ve done, so credit to the boys.”

Havertz knows Jorginho better than most after playing with him for years at Chelsea. He also lauded the midfielder’s performance, telling BBC Sport: “I know him a lot, so for me it is nice to play with him he knows me well. It makes life easy for me – he is a world-class player.”

Arsenal were defeated in controversial fashion in the reverse fixture back in November when a controversial goal from Anthony Gordon was allowed to stand. The decisive strike wasn’t overturned despite lengthy VAR checks, leaving Arsenal furious.