David Luiz urged Arsenal's young guns to grasp their opportunity under Mikel Arteta after a youthful Gunners side made it through to the last eight of the FA Cup.
The Brazilian defender was one of the older heads in the Arsenal side that beat Portsmouth 2-0 at Fratton Park on Monday night as the Gunners booked a place in the quarter-finals.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Eddie Nketiah struck either side of half-time to ensure that Arsenal overcame early wobbles to reach the last eight, and Luiz sent a message to his teammates after the win.
"I think it is important to do the job we are doing every single day, since Mikel came we have done well," he told BT Sport .
"We need to be humble and understand we are not there yet.
"Tonight I was pleased with the team and the young boys, they have a great mentality and understand what is need at a high level. We need to be ready to react and understand football.
"The clean sheet was great, this is the kind of things have to learn, we did it great tonight. Everyone is 100% focused.
"I say to the young lads 'you are starting with a great opportunity at a big club. I'm the oldest in the team but inside my heart is young forever!'"
Goalscorer Nketiah also hailed the performance after he notched his third goal in six games since returning from a loan spell at Leeds United.
"The goals came at the right time, we knew we were in for a hard game, knew the first goal would settle things," he said .
"Then we kept pressing and going for the third. It was a great performance from the team.
"The manager said to keep going and up our intensity in the second half. We played quicker, gaps appeared and that's when we played out best football."
