Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Arsenal have a clean bill of health heading into this weekend’s match with Bournemouth.
The Gunners came into the new campaign with several players having missed chunks of pre-season training but after two games, everybody, including new signing Fabio Vieira, is up to speed.
“Everybody is ok,” said Arteta on Friday. “As you saw we had Cedric [Soares], Fabio [Vieira] and Emile [Smith Rowe] playing with the under-23s [ed. under-21s] and they’ve trained all week with us, they are available for selection.”
Bournemouth started the season with a 2-0 win over Aston Villa before being tonked 4-0 by Manchester City at the Etihad.
Despite the mixed results, the boss says his players need to be on guard against a side who got used to winning last season on their way to promotion.
“It will be a really tough match, I played there many, many times,” said Arteta.
“I know how tough it is, I expect the atmosphere to be hectic. They are a team that is used to winning because last season they were successful, they started well this season, I know the squad very well and I know they’ll make it a difficult game for us.
“There’s a good mixture between what Bournemouth used to do and what Scott [Parker] brings as a manager. He’s evolved the team in a really positive way, they have a really clear idea of how they want to play, a clear identity and they execute that against any opponent.”
Great to have a full squad, we’ll need them over the season. So much better than the start of last season.
Hope we win the next match, will be the first time since 2004-5 that we’ve won the first three matches (and looked what happened there, though that’s beng overly optimistic)…
But so much better than losing your first three matches…
Optimism is back in vogue.
Just going to say it- we finished 2nd in 04/05. Is it really overly optimistic to look at us doing the same this time round with the way our squad’s shaping up, and with Liverpool maybe experiencing a bit of a transitional season? City look boringly imperious as always, but why not aim to finish best of the rest? Anything can happen between now and then, but I don’t think that should be out of the question at all.
Top 2 is entirely possible. It will depend how we do with our critical players injury wise. For me right now, it’s Jesus, Partey and Ramsdale where there are significant drop in quality with the back up players. Matt Turner is an unknown quantity so I’m not sure how he will cope with the pressure of premiere league. Eddie and Mo we all know what we are gonna get and it won’t be anywhere close to what Jesus and Partey brings to the team. We did win against United and Chelsea with both of them in the team but the… Read more »
Everybody is ok.
Apparently Annie still isn’t ok.
Here’s hoping we get to see Vieira in some capacity. I’m still a little nervous about his size but then Mikel wasn’t the biggest guy either. Judging from photos they’re of similar height and build. If he’s anything like Arteta (or even better) I’ll be happy.
He will bulk up in time. Santi was even smaller.
Wiki suggests Mikel: 1.75m, Fabio: 1.7m, Santi: 1.65m
Big concern is his one footedness. In the short video of his play for U21 team – even I knew he was going to stop and turn back to use his left foot – every time.
Is it me or left-footed players are more maligned for being one footed ?
Weirdly true, and it just gave me a bit of a random thought. I’ll be interested to see if pl defenders are criticised anywhere near as much for allowing Luis Dias to cut in on his right foot compared to players who used to do the same against Robben cutting in on his left. For some reason people look at the likes of him and Mahrez doing at as some kind of trademark move that defenders should always be wise to. But yet never look at players doing it from the opposite flank in the same way.
Same size as Zola….he’ll be fine