After seeing his side draw 1-1 with FC Nurnberg out in Germany, Mikel Arteta chatted to a host of journalists who had also made the trip over about numerous topics surrounding the summer so far.
While we couldn’t quite claim a win following Bukayo Saka’s early strike, the boss was satisfied with the work put in during the 90 minutes as he discussed the game plus transfer dealings in and out, and where the squad currently stands physically and tactically.
Here is everything he had to say post-match:
on if he got what he wanted to see from the game:
A lot of things that I saw in the first half and especially as a few of the boys have only had three training sessions so just to give them minutes and exposure to understand and start connecting with each other again. I’ve seen some really good things despite the amount of changes we made and that is why the game declined, especially in quality and in control but we knew that was going to happen.
on the chances we created:
The way we played in the first half was really good and I think we could have scored more goals, even in the second half we had two big, big chances to score and we didn’t. It’s part of football, and mistakes are part of the sport.
on where he sees Kai Havertz playing:
We will see. We have to see how he adapts and get to know each other and build relationships. Football is about that and time will tell where he sees best.
on the latest on transfer dealings:
At the moment we are working with the group of players that is here. We have nothing to announce yet, and when it is done you will be the first to know.
on Granit Xhaka’s departure:
There are three parts to this - he had a very clear desire that it was the right time and a big opportunity for him personally to move there. We had that conversation and in the end, we all agreed that it was the right thing to move forward.
on injuries picked up in the camp:
[Martin Odegaard] and Leo [Trossard] are struggling and we had other players with issues picked up in the week so we have to be cautious. It’s pre-season and some of them have only had two or three training sessions so we’ll take it step by step.
on giving chances to some academy players:
It’s great as that was the opportunity that we wanted to give to them, especially with the amount of changes. Not playing in the right environment with other players as well is difficult but I think they did really well.
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