Mikel Arteta hails 'angry' Arsenal star after Champions League win | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta was quick to praise his goalscoring midfield duo of Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard following Arsenal's 3-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League.

Wednesday night's victory all but guarantees that the Gunners will reach the last 16 of the competition, with only an emphatic defeat to Girona in their final game and sizeable results elsewhere seeing them drop out of the top eight.

Arsenal's triumph over the Croatian giants was relatively straightforward, with Rice firing them ahead in the second minute. Their dominance was further rewarded when Kai Havertz doubled with a header after the hour mark and Odegaard added some gloss to the scoreline in stoppage time to end his goal drought.

The Gunners' skipper hadn't scored in any fixture since the end of November during the 5-2 demolition of West Ham United, blanking in his previous 13 matches in all competitions.

"You could tell by the way Martin celebrated [that] he had an anger and a desire to do it," Arteta gushed after the Norwegian's Player of the Match display at the Emirates Stadium.

Martin Odegaard scored Arsenal's third of the evening / Marc Atkins/GettyImages

Rice also entered Wednesday's duel on a barren run, failing to write his name on the scoresheet during Arsenal's past seven matches, but a well-taken effort saw him score his first Champions League goal.

"His intent, his purpose, especially attacking the positions he is taking and how he's driving with the ball. There is another bite to his game and today he could have scored two goal," Arteta enthused.

"In the last few weeks he had some big, big open chances to score to affect the game, so overall, I'm very happy because we need to affect the game from those positions and he’s certainly capable of doing that."

Arsenal had surrendered a two-goal lead during their 2-2 draw with Aston Villa last weekend as they stumbled in the Premier League title race, but they return to domestic action on Saturday when they visit Wolverhampton Wanderers.