Bernd Leno believes Arsenal can still finish in the top four this season now that Mikel Arteta is in charge.

Arteta was appointed as Arsenal’s new head coach on Friday and watched from the stands at Everton on Saturday as the teams drew 0-0.

The Spaniard’s first game in charge will be at Bournemouth on Boxing Day and he takes over a side 11th in the ­Premier League, with just one win in their last 13 games in all competitions.

Leno, however, believes Arsenal can still overhaul the nine-point gap to ­finish in the Champions League places.

“Of course, because there are still many games,” said the goalkeeper. “We play against all the top six. We have a lot of opportunities to win against them. We still believe. It is in our hands.

“We have to show [the right] mentality, we have to play good football and I think we will have opportunities.

“When we just speak about tactics or quality or what was in the past, it doesn’t matter. If we work hard, get back our strong mentality, then I am confident we can reach our target.”

Arteta was in the Arsenal dressing room at full-time on Saturday and took charge of his first training session ­yesterday. The former midfielder told the squad he was pleased with the ­commitment shown at Goodison, but Leno believes his team-mates must now show that in every game.

“He didn’t speak too much about quality or about tactics, he just said he wants to see players who run, who support their team-mates, who defend the goal, play as a team,” said the German. “I think this was our main problem [before]. We played this season some good games, like this, but many games we were not good enough on this point.

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“I think this is the way he needs to push us. We understood the message. We didn’t let [Everton] have any ­transitions and the distances [between our defenders and their attackers] were much closer.

“This is the only way to play, because the Premier League is too strong to have one, two or three players that don’t defend.”

Saturday was a rare quiet afternoon for Leno as Everton failed to have a single shot on target all match. The goalkeeper put that down to Arsenal’s defensive work off the ball, although he admits he still could not allow himself to switch off.

“I have a lot of experience, so there was no time for coffee because I knew I had to be focused on the game,” Leno added. “I think this was the first game where there was no shot on target.

“It was completely different to other games, but you can see only with ­intensity, with mentality, we didn’t ­concede a goal. I think the line-up was very good because everybody was ­fighting for the team.”