BIG BUYS LIFTED ARTETA SPIRITS

MIKEL ARTETA insisted he was feeling better for his post-season holiday back in June but his wife Lorena was having none of it.

- MATTHEW DUNN

Tanned certainly, but far from relaxed. Not after the way the previous campaign had finished.

“I probably pretended to my wife that I stopped thinking about it,” the Spaniard said. “But she will say something very different.

“You need to get over it. Being away helps quite a lot. It’s the feeling when you have created that belief and believe you can do it and then it suddenly goes away.

“But it’s part of it and we all need that to be better, that moment when you feel ‘I failed’ or I didn’t achieve what I wanted.

“You still have the hunger and desire to go again. That’s a big motivation.”