Arsenal have lost all three matches in the new Premier League season and are currently sitting at the bottom of the table.
Follow Us
On the back of a busy summer transfer market, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is confident that he now has the tools needed to compete. The Gunners made six first-team signings, bringing in the likes of Ben White, Martin Odegaard and Aaron Ramsdale among others to boost the squad. “We have a completely different squad with the number of changes that you just mentioned,” Arteta told media ahead of their games against Norwich City on Saturday, according to their club’s website. “You can tell that is unheard of. Now we have the tools that we believe are going to give us the best opportunity to compete in the way we want to compete and build what we want to build in this project and now we have to make it work.”
“We have to build it together, we need to create relationships, chemistry, understanding. We have to adapt and we have to do that really quickly. The amount of changes in two years is almost 30 players. Edu explained it like I tried to explain it. We have all participated, trying to create and build this project, led by the owners, and it is a project we believe in, that we have to assemble because it is the only option that we believe was best for the future of the club.”
Arsenal have lost all three matches in the new Premier League season and are currently sitting at the bottom of the table. “We all take responsibility because we have all been involved in the decisions and we have to make it work. The complexity in football is that you want to build a medium to long-term project with immediate results and we have to embrace that, because there is no other way in football and you are going to have to get results and we are ready to do that,” he stated.
When asked about the effect of a fully-fit squad, Arteta responded, “I am really looking forward to having everyone available and trying to start the season the way we want. We don’t want to use any excuses, we know how difficult the start was with injuries, a lot of covid issues we had and the extremely difficult games that we had. We have to reset now and we need to start, get everyone back on track and start to win football games, which is what we have to do.”
Asked whether Norwich is a must-win game, Mikel Arteta replied, “It always is at Arsenal. The pressure is always there to be as high as possible in the league table, we need the first win and we are going to play in front of our fans after a disappointing start, so it is down to us to provide everything we have performance-wise to earn the result we want at the end.”
The Arsenal manager also went on to say only good things about their Saturday opponents Norwich. He added: “First of all, what they have been doing over the years, how consistent they have been with the manager, with the style of play, they have been up and down but they haven’t changed much. It is a team that is a joy to watch, the way they want to play, the risks they take, how attacking they are… I don’t know what they will do against us, but so far from what I’ve seen, even against top sides, it has been good even though the results haven’t been good.”
