Arteta on Kolasinac and January transfer window

With the January transfer window poised to open, it was no surprise that Mikel Arteta was asked in depth about his plans when he faced the media on Thursday.

Our manager discussed possible outgoings - and how he is looking to add to his squad over the next month.

This is what he said:

on Sead Kolasinac...

I cannot confirm anything yet. We are working on a couple of things and obviously the window is going to bring a lot of news. Some are true, some are not. Whenever we have something to say, we will announce it.

on whether there is any truth in the reports linking Sead with a return to Schalke...

We've had some conversations around a few players and whether we can find some loans because the numbers we have in the squad at the moment are really big. Again, we cannot confirm anything yet.

on the need to trim our squad in the January transfer window…

Well, we have a large squad, we knew that and a lot of things we wanted to do in the summer, we couldn’t accomplish for different reasons. There are some players that are going to go on loan, they are going to leave, and that’s the priority at the moment. We cannot sustain the numbers that we have in terms of substitutions. We are looking to do that and then we will see if we have the right opportunities in the positions that we need some more help. We are working with the club to find that.

on whether a loan deal is more likely than a permanent deal…

We need to be careful with that (stifling the development of a youngster), but obviously financially, it’s only only us, it’s every club in the Premier League who has been hit with big numbers. We know that this is not going to change from the last year or so and we are going to have to add some of how we want to improve the team in different ways financially. We will decide whether it’s a loan or buying players in relation to the opportunity that we have in the market.