Interview

Parris - Leah told me a lot about Arsenal

The hardest thing about Nikita Parris' move was having to keep it quiet from her new team-mates.

Not only is the 27-year-old good friends with a number of our players, she has also been training with them every day in Team GB's Olympic camp.

So just how tough has it been to keep hush-hush?

"It's not possible when you're all over the news and Sky Sports have rumours," Parris told Arsenal Media. "I saw I was supposed to be in north London like a week ago but actually in the Home Bargains with my mum, picking up essentials for GB camp. North London looked great from Home Bargains!

"I do speak with Leah a lot and she's one of my close friends at camp. She tells me a lot about Arsenal and she's Arsenal through and through. She's been here a long time and she really holds the badge close to her heart, you can see that every time she steps onto the pitch.

"I've known her a while. We went to the Under-19s Championships and then we went to the Under-20s World Cup together, but I'd known Leah about two or three years before that, just never really played with her at the national team because I'm two or three years older than her.