Mikel Arteta Arsenal
You signed Jesus to put the ball in the net but you couldn’t have expected him to score so many so quickly?
It’s what he generates. The understanding with Eddie as well has been really good, it’s something that we want to have as an option this year especially with five subs. We have other alternatives and it’s great that they can do it together.
Is the squad getting close to where you want it?
Yes absolutely. Today it was a bit of a puzzle because some players could only play certain minutes. Kieran, for example, could only play 30 minutes and we wanted to give him the first 30 to have a good warm up after such a long time. Others only 45, others again 30. So they go by what we needed. There’s a lot of things to improve, but it’s true that when we get everybody back we will be more competitive.
Do you think there are still more players to come in?
There are more things that we would like to do if we can, but obviously the market will dictate what we can do. So far we are happy with what we’ve done.
How difficult is it to manage the players who were on loan last season who look like they’re on their way out?
What I said to them on the first day is that they are Arsenal players. Things change dramatically in football from one day to another and you have to be prepared for that. If any of those players want to take the opportunity, the door is open and they will have to earn it. It’s no different to any other player in the squad.
Is Tielemans a player you want to bring in?
We never talk about players that are not ours. As I said before, we can still improve the team in the market and we’re going to try to do it, but I won’t go into any specific names.
Was Gabriel Jesus your main target?
It was a position that we have been looking to improve for a long time and we are really happy that we managed to get him.
Do you see Jesus and Eddie working together?
That’s why I played them because we want to try in pre-season things that we want to do in the season. We are going to have a lot of games, a lot of moments where we need to play in different ways and that’s great because they are both in top form.
