Mikel Arteta says he knew within 10 seconds of speaking to Raheem Sterling that Arsenal needed to sign the England international when the opportunity arose.
Frozen out by Chelsea, the winger was offered an escape by the Gunners on transfer deadline day, eventually joining on a season-long loan after his parent club agreed to cover the majority of his wages.
The 29-year-old has spent the last couple of weeks training in his new surroundings and Arteta, who worked with the player at Manchester City, is convinced the attacker will make his side better.
“He looks great, first of all because he’s got a big smile on his face, a lot of energy, he’s at it. He wants to prove a point,” Arteta told his pre-Sp*rs press conference.
“When someone has that in their belly, you sense it straight away. We don’t need to discover anything about his quality and what he can bring to the team.
He added: “What I see is hunger, a player that wants to play every minute of every game and when that’s not the case, he’s not happy. He loves football, it’s what he likes doing every single day and I see that.
“His commitment, the level of energy he’s bringing to the team, his quality is a big boost. You can feel it in the players as well when he walked through the door. We are better with him. He’s going to make us better.”
Arteta has been credited with unlocking Sterling’s goalscoring pedigree during three years together at the Etihad. While the player’s key numbers have dropped off since moving to Stamford Bridge, there are high hopes that the Spaniard can again unlock the player’s best form in front of goal.
“He has this ability and obviously the credit for that is his and the players around him, you need that when one of the front players certainly,” said Arteta.
“He has that intuition, that will and the ability to do that and I’m sure he’s going to impact the team.”
And asked how much hunger for success Sterling still has, Arteta added: “A lot, obviously in his personal life a lot of things have changed since the moment we worked together.
“I was really surprised. The first call I had with him, I knew straight away in 10 seconds, we have to bring him here because he really wanted it. That was my only question mark, where is he at, what stage is he at in his career. After 10 seconds, I knew already before the next question, we need him here.”
A goal on his debut at the wrong end of the Seven Sisters Road would be a fine way to kick-start his time as an Arsenal player. Fingers crossed that happens.
A debut goal will be great for everyone
And in those 10 seconds, Arteta had flash backs of Raheem missing open goals in a side by side thought bubble with a t rex running at full pace. I am dubious, but happily proven wrong. Good luck to him on Sunday.
Also, I’ve kind of written this match off in my head but now Sutton has predicted us to lose I am rethinking everything.
Weird guy
Cheers.
The team from last year got better. Injuries may cast a cloud on that, but it’s true. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Arsenal are right up there with the best of the best in the world.
Weird guy
Says the guy posting the same comment twice in a row
Are you fats in disguise? So much negativity it’s mad
Why oh why is he wearing the no.30 shirt and not the 10 😭
Whatever you’ve done previously in your career, you can’t just turn up and take no.10. You’ve got to earn it here at Arsenal
William Gallas *shudder*
Didn’t know whether to up or down vote your comment.
You’re right, but I never ever want to think about that again
i had kind of an inspiration yesterday that he will score the winner with a wonderstrike 5 minutes from time. we´ll see if i can make a living through prophecies
Surely you already know the answer to this…
I had a dream that Romero scored an own goal within the first 30 seconds. Whatever does it for us will be fine!
Yes, I can see him waltzing through the Spuds defence to claim the winner.
I made some of this point in another context: A player’s performance at Chelsea in the past couple of years has very little predictive value for how he will play for another team. Arsenal fans think of Havertz, of course, or maybe Jorginho. But my Exhibit A is a player with no connection to Arsenal, and who we don’t particularly like, Marc Cucarella. He looked a very good player at Brighton and absolute crap at Chelsea last year. Was he just not capable of moving up from Brighton to a “big” team? Had he lost a step or something? But… Read more »
That’s a good point. Sterling has been a genuinely fantastic player for a lot of his career and his best years coincided with Arteta being his coach. He could be a clever signing for us.
Ah George, thank you for this post. I feel warm and fuzzy all over. Someone gets it.
You are on point, as usual. I enjoy your posts and sensible takes.
When you didn’t start talking of Kevin, I stopped reading.
I loved Raheem Sterling before he became an Arsenal player.
I hope he does really well for us!
“ARTETA WANTED STERLING INSIDE 10 SECONDS”.
Even for Raheem, that’s a very fast time for the 100 metres.
To be honest hed not really that great. Selling esr snd getting another chelsea player from their bench after all the rumors oshimen, Isak etc isnt excatly what i wanted.
We were never dropping 80m plus on a striker this window.
Oshimen is such a diva that even Chelsea couldn’t meet his demands. Isak was clear he wasn’t moving. The rumors were just internet drivel.
Experience, skill, versatility across the forward positions and hungry to win. Arteta and him have a great relationship. Plus Chelski paying his wages.. What’s not to like!?