Press conference

'His work ethic is incredible, I'm very impressed'

Our warm-weather training camp in Dubai gave Mikel Arteta the perfect opportunity to assess his squad - and Kieran Tierney certainly made a big impression.

The Scotland international is working hard to return to full fitness after dislocating his right shoulder against West Ham in December, and our head coach likes what he sees from the left back.

"He is making very good progress but we need to wait for the bone and the attachment to the tendon to heal before he can make any contact," Arteta said.

"He has been training, his work ethic is incredible, I have been really impressed with him so hopefully we can get him back soon but we need to be a little bit patient with him.

"It was like a mini pre-season for us in Dubai," he added. "We had time to work on a lot of our principles: how we want to set up against different formations, the relevant things we need to work on [both] on and off the ball. 

"Apart from that, it was great to be together and spend some time together, get to know each other, not just the players but the staff and the backroom staff as well. It was a very productive trip.

"I wanted to give [the players] a few days rest because they went through a lot of things in the last few months. After that, we reflected on what we did together in the last five or six weeks since I joined, the things we improved and are very positive and we have to maintain, and also the things we need to improve and develop.

"We worked really well, we agreed and set some targets and we have started to work on them and hopefully we can see the outcome in the next few weeks."

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