After a disappointing week in which Arsenal lost to Aston Villa and Bayern Munich, Mikel Arteta is keen to put the past behind and focus on the opportunities ahead.

The Premier League title race continues at Molineux Stadium where the Gunners will take on Wolverhampton Wanderers from on Saturday. “I’m fully focused on the times that we have ahead of us with six games to go,” Mikel said in his pre-match press conference on Friday. “We are a game behind City and we’re going to give it a real go.

“The context is clear. If we win we are top of the league. That’s the context, we don’t need anything else to be motivated or to go to that game with our minds clear and our purpose very, very clear.”

Wolves are 11th in the division with 43 points after last weekend’s 2-2 draw away to Nottingham Forest, and Mikel was full of praise for the job Gary O’Neil has done there.

“Unbelievable, so good,” he said. “And you can tell how well they are coached, the spirit of the team, the difficulty that they create against every opponent, really good side and it will be really tough tomorrow, we have prepared really good in the last two days, we had a great training session today.”

Asked for the message he has given to his players after a tough week of two defeats, Mikel added: “Fully behind them, thank you so much for the journey we are having together, thank you so much for being in April, the quarter-final of the Champions League and being so close, competing against the best team in the history of the Premier League and the best team in the last eight years in this competition with Liverpool and to be there with a chance to win it.

“So thank you so much to everything they have done because it’s unbelievable.”