The Gunners won the first-leg of their round 16 encounter 7-1 on Tuesday night.
“It was a beautiful night,” the manager said. “The players really made us enjoy the night. It was a big game obviously, in the Champions League, in the knockout stage and to play with flow, to score the goals we did and in the manner that we won the game – very, very impressive.
“We talked about stepping up to the occasion and when it comes to this moment you have to elevate your level,” he said. “You really have to play with a lot of initiative and when we talk about initiative, getting players in the positions that players are in, a full-back putting an assist for Myles (Lewis-Skelly), Jurrien (Timber) scoring a goal, Calafiori making a run and scoring with the right foot, that’s the team that we want to see and they’re a phenomenal team.
“It’s really difficult because PSV are a really good team, the way they beat Juventus was really impressive. So how we’ve done it and when we’ve done it, I think we have to give the boys a lot of credit.”
Arteta admits he was delighted for the players on the night.
“I’m especially happy for them because of recent results, obviously it’s difficult when you generate the amount of situations that we generate in the last two games and haven’t managed to score. This is the beauty of football, don’t talk too much, keep working, put your head down and things will happen.
“It’s Champions League,” he added, “and in a week’s time we’re going to have to play them again and we’re going to have to prove again the team we are in and how willing we are to win the game.”