Mikel Arteta on his new Arsenal contract, Odegaard’s injury, Jesus’ return & Calafiori
Mikel Arteta has been speaking to the press ahead of Sunday’s North London derby at Tottenham.
The Arsenal boss answered questions on several subjects, including his new contract and the latest Arsenal team news, including the fitness of captain Martin Odegaard after the injury he picked up while playing for Norway during the international break.
Here is a selection of what he had to say.
What’s your reaction to your new contract?
“I’m really happy and excited. It shows the alignment between the club, myself and the coaching staff. We enjoy working together and we have higher ambitions that we want to fulfil. That’s the way that I look at it and as I said I’m really pleased and grateful as well. I couldn’t think of a better place to be as a player with the people that I met and the experiences that I had at this amazing football club. Now as a manager it’s been something far beyond and better than I ever dreamed about probably.”
On Martin Odegaard’s injury
“We need some more tests. Let’s see what happens in the next day or so. This afternoon probably. Let’s see the extent of the injury and how quickly we can get him back. He’s super positive about everything. Martin wants to be here every day, but we have to wait and see.”
Is he hopeful it might not be as bad as first thought?
“I leave that to the doctor. He’s willing and he wants to be present in every game, especially a big game like this one. We need to make sure we know first how good he can be or not.”
So you’re not ruling him out of Spurs at this stage?
“Players with 48 hours are always available. Let’s see what happens.”
How’s Mikel Merino?
“Better, it’s a slow process because it’s a bone and it takes a while to heal. He’s already doing some stuff and working really hard. We’re using this time to make sure he understands a lot of things that he has questions about so that when he is back to help the team straight away.”
Could he back before the next international break?
“I don’t know. Honestly with the bone it’s very hard to understand the healing of the bone. At the moment he has a lot of symptoms. You can speed it up very quickly because he’s not lost anything else. But we have to wait and see.”
What about Gabriel Jesus?
“Gabi was out there. He’s got another session tomorrow and if everything goes well he’ll be ready to be selected in the squad which is great news for us.”
And Riccardo Calafiori?
“He’s another one where we’ll have to wait another day or so.”
On Raheem Sterling
“He looks great. He’s got a lot of energy, a smile on his face and he’s at it. He wants to prove a point and when someone’s got that in his belly you sense it straight away. Obviously I don’t need to know anything else about his quality and what he can bring to the team.”
On What Sterling has been like these past two weeks?
What I see is hunger. He’s a player that wants to play every minute of every game. When that’s not the case, he’s not happy. He wants to play every single day and I see that. His commitment and the level of energy that he’s bringing to the team is a big boost. You can feel it walking through the door. We are better with him. He’s gonna make us better. The first call I had with him I knew in the first ten seconds we have to bring him because he really wanted it. That was my only question mark: What stage is he at in his career?’ After ten seconds I knew already before the next questions that we needed him here.”