Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta reserved special praise for one of his troops after Saturday's 2-0 Premier League success at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
With Manchester City travelling to Wembley to face Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-finals, Arsenal knew that all three points at Molineux would send them back to the summit of the top-flight table.
The Gunners had lost back-to-back clashes with Aston Villa and Bayern Munich in their last two games, though, and they suffered a pre-game injury blow with the news that Takehiro Tomiyasu had picked up a fresh knock.
Arteta kept faith with eight of his starters from the Allianz Arena, and the Gunners looked incredibly leggy at times, but they weathered a few Wolves attacks and went into the break a goal ahead thanks to Leandro Trossard's sliced finish.
There was little to write home about in a dull second half, where Wolves' attacking absences hurt them dear, and the Gunners wrapped up all three points in injury time as Martin Odegaard finished from a tight angle.
Arteta waxes lyrical about Trossard
Trossard's timely opening goal arrived right on the stroke of half time to help calm Arsenal nerves, and the Belgium international now sits in 14 strikes for the season in all tournaments, second only to Bukayo Saka'a 18.
Trossard has often been lauded for his impact from the bench this season, but having come good from the first whistle this time around, the 29-year-old was described as a "joy" to have around by Arteta in his post-game press conference.
"He's a little magician. He can score on any surface and he's a big threat; so composed, so cool, he can play in different positions. It's just a joy to have him in the team," the Spaniard told reporters.
Either side of Trossard's finish, Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya was a busy man at the other end of the field, and he bailed Jakub Kiwior out of trouble with a stunning save from Joao Gomes's effort.
Kiwior, who struggled at left-back for most of the evening, was caught unawares by Gomes, who subsequently surged towards goal and let fly, but Raya managed to tip the Brazilian's effort onto the crossbar at his near post.
Raya labelled "outstanding" after historic clean sheet
As well as recording his 13th clean sheet of the season, four more than closest Golden Glove challengers Jordan Pickford and Bernd Leno, Raya helped Arsenal record six consecutive away shutouts in the Premier League for the first time in their history.
"Very, very good. He didn't concede anything up to that point and we had some very open situations to score goals and we didn't, and that would have changed the course of the game for sure," Arteta said on Raya's brilliant stop from Gomes.
"David was outstanding in that moment to make the save that we needed, and we took advantage [of it]. I think the timing of the first goal was really helpful as well and I'm really happy."
On Arsenal's record-breaking streak of clean sheets, the Spaniard added: "Very difficult [to achieve], I don't know when it's the last time it was done, but I imagine it wasn't recently because it's extremely difficult to do that.
"Credit to the boys for the level of organisation, for the understanding and especially for the love they show while defending and the platform it gives to the team to win football matches."
The Gunners only have two full days to recover before they welcome London rivals Chelsea to the Emirates on Tuesday evening, where they can temporarily open up a four-point lead over Man City, who do not play again until Thursday night. body check tags ::
