Mikel Arteta admitted he had sleepless nights due to Arsenal’s availability issues ahead of Sunday’s north London derby at Tottenham, but praised his side’s resilience in securing an important 1-0 win.

A 64th-minute header from Gabriel Magalhaes decided a close game in Arsenal’s favour. Arteta’s side have now won three consecutive away league games at Spurs for the first time since 1988.

Arsenal were without the suspended Declan Rice, and Martin Ødegaard, Mikel Merino and Riccardo Calafiori were also missing due to injury.

Ødegaard and Calafiori sustained injuries while on international duty, while Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney were also out.

“I didn’t enjoy (the preparation) because I didn’t sleep much,” Arteta said. “I looked at Spurs for four or five days and had a super clear plan of how I was going to approach it.”

“I prepared all the meetings, training sessions and everything else. Then I got the news that we lost a player, and then another, and another, and I had to completely change everything and adapt the plan to the players we had available. So it was a big challenge.”

“The moment we got that news, the team became more and more hungry to play that game. It’s a huge compliment to everyone at the club to behave in a certain way. It’s a tough week ahead and instead of making any excuses, we did the opposite. We rose to the challenge, played courageously and recognised the qualities we had to win the game.”

Ødegaard suffered an ankle injury that will keep the Arsenal captain out of action for three weeks, according to Norwegian team doctor Ola Sand. This means he will miss Thursday’s Champions League away game against Atalanta and Sunday’s game against Premier League champions Manchester City.

However, Arteta insisted after Sunday’s game that Arsenal would have to “wait and see” regarding his future availability.