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Arteta comfortable in Arsenal pressure cooker

Mikel Arteta has had an unbeaten start to life at Arsenal © Getty Images

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New Arsenal signing Mikel Arteta has revealed he sought out Cesc Fabregas' advice on how to handle the pressure at Arsenal, following a £10 million move from Everton.

Arteta made the switch to Arsenal as a replacement for Fabregas, and has impressed in his opening two fixtures, a 1-0 win over Swansea and a 1-1 draw at Dortmund.

Although those results represent a step in the right direction for the Gunners, particularly after their 8-2 thrashing at Manchester United last month, both performances were disjointed as the rash of new signings failed to gel together.

But Arteta expects the new recruits to play with more cohesion as time goes on.

"I talked to Cesc the day after I signed and he advised me on two or three things and was really nice," Arteta said. "He told me about areas to live, about team-mates, how good they are, about the people at the club. We are not close friends because we never played together but we know each other because we have some friends in common.

"I'm happy with the players here, that they can make us good. There's going to be pressure, you need to handle it. The challenge here is to win trophies. At Everton, I didn't have the chance to do that. Hopefully we'll have it here and we can make it. We knew the start was going to be really difficult and we stuck at it.

"Against Dortmund, we could have done much better with the ball than we did. We need to settle in as quickly as possible. There are five or six new players coming in and the spirit is really good. The manager is really positive about it and we know we will be fine."

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