You must be aware of the buzz around your performances at the moment, but do you feel that anything particular has changed or clicked in the last couple of months?

I often hear things like you’ve just said – that something has changed – but I’m not sure about that. My preparation for games and training has not altered at all; it’s the same as it has ever been. Sometimes you can look at a player, see that he’s suddenly doing this and that and it’s making a difference, but that’s not the case here. So if you ask why things are going well, it’s hard to say – obviously the whole team is playing very good football at the moment and I think I fit quite well into the team now. We enjoy playing together and that’s a big part of it.

Having Alex Song and Mikel Arteta behind you must have done a lot for your creative freedom…

The balance we have looks great at the moment, and the midfielders complement each other very well. Mikel and Alex may start behind me on the pitch but they’re both very good in the attacking phase, so it’s not that we have a defensive midfielder, a central midfielder and an attacking midfielder. We’re not rigid; we often alternate and I sometimes even cover for those two. We can all play forwards but we can all defend, and this is equally important.

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Written by Atishay Agarwal

Atishay Agarwal is the Editor of 90 Minutes, and an ardent football fan for much of the last 12 years. An engineer, he got into football journalism by accident. He has earlier worked as Chief Editor of Goal.com India, and embarked on his dream to give India its own football magazine when he co-founded 90 Minutes in 2011.

You can also follow and catch what he's up to on twitter @AtishayAgarwal.