Arsenal's start to the 2021/22 Premier League campaign could not have gotten off to a worse start.
The Gunners were beaten 2-0 by newly-promoted Brentford on the opening day of the season, before being defeated by Chelsea last weekend by the same scoreline.
Plenty has been said about Mikel Arteta already, with the manager coming under increasing pressure for his side's displays in the first two rounds of the campaign.
However, a trip to West Bromwich Albion earlier in the week came at a perfect time for the north London club. Defeat for Arsenal would have made life incredibly difficult for Arteta, but it turned out to be a resounding 6-0 win for the visitors at the Hawthorns.
This weekend, though, the Gunners kick off the third round of Premier League fixtures with a trip to the Etihad Stadium to take on last season's champions Manchester City - in what is very likely to be an incredibly difficult task for the away side.
Folarin Balogun, who has played in both of Arsenal's first two Premier League clashes of the season, has now revealed what Arteta told his players following last weekend's 2-0 defeat to Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium.
The 20-year-old told talkSPORT: “The boss after Chelsea, he wants us to not panic.
"He wants us to carry on playing our game, do what we’re good at, so like definitely against West Brom, that showed.
"Of course we have Pierre [Emerick Aubameyang], he gets lots of goals and he’s a great guy, so that helps, so the boss mainly just wanted us to relax and play the way we know we can do.”
Following the defeat to the Blues last weekend, Arteta spoke to the media after the game and opened up on how his team will prepare for the trip to Manchester on Saturday lunchtime.
He said: "Try to give them confidence and the tools and belief that football changes really quickly. The league table is not going to be decided in August.
"I don’t want to see anybody feeling sorry for themselves or for the team because that’s not going to help us.
"I want a team, a squad of individuals that wants to fight, that wants to face the challenge that is ahead of us because normally when you do that you get the reward.
"That’s what I'm going to try to do with them."
