Arsenal centre-back Sokratis Papastathopoulos has admitted that he and his team need to improve their fitness after beating Manchester United 2-0.
However, the Greek international has tipped the Gunners to rapidly improve under Mikel Arteta as the club move into 2020.
The Emirates Stadium enjoyed a positive start to the new year with the home side putting in an impressive performance, especially in the first half against United.
Sokratis scored the second goal of the game to follow up Nicolas Pepe's opener to leave Ole Gunnar Solskjaer stumped over how to respond to Arteta and his tactics.
Arsenal played with a clear plan in possession and a well organised structure that carried some similarities to the way Manchester City have played over the last three years.
Speaking in a post-match interview with BT Sport, Sokratis promised fans that the team still had plenty of room to grow.
"I think we also have a lot of space to improve," he said. "Second half we didn't play like the first half. But I think every game is better and we started to play.
"I hope the New Year brings the best."
While the Arsenal defender may be looking for his team to gain the physical qualities to match their head coach's game plan, he backed the ideas that Arteta has already brought into the club.
"We know we are not ready to fight for 90 minutes and for this second half again today we was struggling," said Sokratis. "But I think every player now likes the way play and like I said before the fan is back.
"We have to try more and play better and better in every game."
