Bernd Leno insists Freddie Ljungberg is doing an excellent job as interim coach and believes the victory over West Ham was the return of the ‘real Arsenal’.
Ljungberg got his first win as caretaker manager on Monday night against West Ham, snapping Arsenal’s nine-match wait for a victory in any competition.
Gabriel Martinelli was handed his full Premier League by Ljungberg in a shock decision before the game and Leno heaped praised on the Swede.
‘I do not know what the club is deciding,’ Leno said about the search for a full-time manager. ‘We only have to focus on now.
‘Freddie is doing a very good job. The team know about his quality and the way they want to play.
‘We want to play with possession, keep the ball and also press very high, and also with transitions. It is not our decision, it is a decision of the club.
‘From the first day he said he wanted to see laughing faces, to see a good atmosphere.
‘We had a bad time, we are all human and it is not easy. It was not like we did not try, but it just did not work.’
Arsenal were losing the game at half-time following Angelo Ogbonna’s opener, before Martinelli sparked a second-half fight-back.
Nicolas Pepe and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would score to secure a 3-1 victory and Leno detailed what was said during the interval.
‘You could feel in the first half we had no confidence,’ he said.
‘In the half-time we talked to each other and said we have to change something.
‘The performance in the second half was impressive, we controlled the game, scored some nice goals, took our chances and it was well deserved.
‘This result must give us confidence for the next weeks. Freddie was talking and analysing (at half-time). He showed us some situations that we needed to be braver.
‘We did this. It is a good feeling, we all missed the feeling.
‘He was calm but in a very straight way. It was not like everyone was not trying, but you could feel that we did not play in a free way and he made us more free to play.
‘You could see this more in the second half. After the second and the third goal you could see how we can play with more confidence. This is the real Arsenal.’
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