Tag: Arsenal

  • Mikel Arteta responds to criticism of Kai Havertz at Arsenal

    Mikel Arteta responds to criticism of Kai Havertz at Arsenal

    Armory’s director, Mikel Arteta, has answered late analysis encompassing the presentation of midfielder Kai Havertz, shielding the player’s capacities and communicating trust in his commitment to the group.

    Havertz, a high-profile getting paperwork done for Munititions stockpile in the late spring move window, has confronted examination from fans and savants the same for what some see as a sluggish beginning to his vocation at the North London club. Be that as it may, Arteta tended to these worries during a public interview held at the Munititions stockpile Preparing Center.

    “Kai Havertz is an excellent ability, and his presence in our crew carries profundity and adaptability to our midfield,” Arteta expressed. “Adjusting to another group and association can be testing, and everybody really must stay patient and steady.”

    The Spanish supervisor underscored the player’s flexibility and his conviction that Havertz’s characteristics will radiate through as he turns out to be more adjusted to the group’s style of play. “Kai is a player with a striking footballing level of intelligence. He has the vision, procedure, and strategic comprehension that are essential to our framework,” Arteta said.

    Arteta’s remarks come after Havertz’s blended exhibitions in the opening matches of the Chief Association season. In spite of glimmers of splendor, the 24-year-old German worldwide presently can’t seem to enlist an objective or help, energizing worries about his effect on the pitch.

    Answering inquiries about whether the tension of his weighty sticker price had impacted Havertz, Arteta affirmed that the emphasis ought to be on supporting the player as opposed to focusing on outer elements. “Our club’s interest in Kai mirrors our faith in his capacities. What he wants right presently is our trust and support, not unnecessary tension,” Arteta confirmed.

    The Armory director’s position lines up with the feelings communicated by Havertz’s colleagues. Munititions stockpile commander Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang voiced his trust in the youthful midfielder, expressing, “Kai is a fabulous expansion to our group. We’ve seen looks at his ability, and I’m sure he’ll find his mood soon.”

    As Weapons store plans for their impending apparatuses, including a conflict against a savage opponent, Arteta stays fearless in his conviction that Havertz’s commitments will consistently increment after some time. “I have most likely that Kai will turn into a vital piece of our prosperity. His devotion and responsibility on and off the pitch are obvious to everybody,” Arteta finished up.

    The next few weeks will offer a more clear image of Havertz’s movement inside the Stockpile setup, as the midfielder proceeds to prepare and foster under Arteta’s direction. For the time being, the chief’s unflinching help remains as a demonstration of the club’s steady confidence in the youthful player’s true capacity.

  • Arteta urges Arsenal to relish ‘beautiful experience’ of Manchester City clash

    Arteta urges Arsenal to relish ‘beautiful experience’ of Manchester City clash

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    Mikel Arteta wants Arsenal to savour the “beautiful experience” of a potential title decider against Manchester City at the Etihad but accepts his players will have to delve into previously untapped resources to regain control of a neck-and-neck race for the top.

    Arsenal travel to Manchester with a five-point lead at the summit but, given their opponents have two games in hand, anything bar a win would make City favourites to pull clear by the end of the season. Three straight draws have squandered much of Arsenal’s advantage but Arteta praised his side for staying with Pep Guardiola’s team and urged them to hit the heights required for a successful conclusion.

    “A beautiful experience tomorrow night, that is what I want them to take,” he said, when asked what Arsenal’s squad might glean from such a high-pressure occasion. “A beautiful experience where we do what we have to do to win the game. For us to have been able to go toe-to-toe with [City] is great. But it’s not enough because we want to win it, so we have to find a different edge [so] now that we are here we are going to win it. And to do that, excellence is the only thing that is going to take you where we want to go.”

    Arteta worked as Guardiola’s assistant at City for three and a half years before taking the Arsenal job in December 2019. The usually pragmatic manager allowed himself a brief reflection on the pace at which his life has changed since then. “It is the beauty of football,” he said. “Five years ago if somebody told me we would be in this position, him at City and me at Arsenal, and going toe-to-toe with them … ”

    City were 3-1 victors at the Emirates two months ago, winning 11 and drawing three of their 14 matches in all competitions since. They are in searing form but Arteta was bullish when it was put to him that his team might have had a greater chance of winning at the Etihad earlier in the campaign. “They’ve been in incredible form but look where we are in the table,” he said. “That means we’ve been in incredible form as well. That’s why we are where we are.

    Granit Xhaka (left) in training last week
    Mikel Arteta will hope to be able to call upon Granit Xhaka (left) in Manchester. Photograph: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC/Getty Images

    “It’s going to be a tough night and challenge but the opportunity is incredible for us. We knew from the beginning, if you want to win a Premier League, you have to go to Spurs and beat them. You have to go to Chelsea and you have to beat them. You have to go away from home and win. This is what we’ve been doing. This is why we’re here. Now you have to go to City and you have to beat them.”

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    Any hopes that William Saliba might make a miraculous recovery to reassume his place in Arsenal’s defence appear to have been dashed, Arteta suggesting the centre-back would be absent into next week because of a back injury that could curtail his season. They have struggled to keep things tight without Saliba and a lack of security was doubly pronounced when Granit Xhaka missed Friday’s 3-3 draw against Southampton through illness. Xhaka is doubtful again and Arteta will be desperate for his most experienced player to recover in time.

    “Injuries for us in the wrong moments, losing three or four players, is not great, but we have to adapt,” he said. “If you want to win the championship you have to go through those moments and somehow overcome that situation. We have to show that now.”

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    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • Pep Guardiola admits Manchester City will be scared before Arsenal title clash

    Pep Guardiola admits Manchester City will be scared before Arsenal title clash

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    Pep Guardiola has admitted he and his players will be scared before Manchester City’s title showdown with Arsenal on Wednesday night at the Etihad Stadium.

    Guardiola is vastly experienced and one of the most decorated managers in history, with 30 major trophies, but says he will still feel anxious before facing the leaders.

    “I manage well but it is a good sign, being a little bit nervous,” he said. “So the people in society, the teenagers, all of them are psychologists for mental health because they don’t accept that being nervous is part of our lives, being anxious is part of our lives, being scared is part of our lives, and nothing happens. We don’t have to be perfect. When we educate our kids, they have to be perfect for Instagram and TikTok and this kind of thing – they have to be a genius.”

    Guardiola relishes the apprehension that characterises his match buildup. “When I feel that feeling I know it’s normal,” he said. “The problem would be if I didn’t have that feeling. I like to live this kind of adrenaline … but in the end I sleep quite well. That is not a problem.”

    His team will also be nervous. The manager said: “They have experience, too. Everyone has to find his own meditation to prepare himself for what they need, either with music or whatever they need to prepare for the game. But the team is ready for a big battle – I know how difficult it will be.”

    Arsenal have taken only three points from the previous possible nine, reducing their advantage to five points. City, who have two matches in hand, will retain the Premier League title if they win their remaining eight games. They are unbeaten in 16 matches but Guardiola insisted he would prefer Arsenal to be in better form.

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    “After three games dropping points it will be much, much more difficult,” he said. “I would have preferred it if they had come here with better results than the last three.”

    City knocked Bayern Munich out of the Champions League 4-1 on aggregate last week but Guardiola thinks they will have to be better to defeat first Arsenal and then their semi-final opponents, Real Madrid.

    “I don’t know if the [performance in the] games against Bayern will be enough to win tomorrow or to get to the final of the Champions League,” the manager said. “In some departments, we have to improve.”

    Nathan Aké is ruled out with a hamstring injury so Aymeric Laporte may replace him at left-back.

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    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • Arsenal appear to be out of steam as financial gravity brings them down | Jonathan WIlson

    Arsenal appear to be out of steam as financial gravity brings them down | Jonathan WIlson

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    What if the Queen hadn’t died when she did? If she hadn’t, Arsenal would have faced PSV Eindhoven in the Europa League in September and that game wouldn’t have had to be played in the midweek slot when they had been slated to host Manchester City.

    Arsenal would have gone into what could prove the defining game of the season in October on a run of seven straight victories, having beaten Tottenham and Liverpool in their previous two home league matches, while City would have been coming off a 1-0 defeat at Anfield. As it was, Arsenal were fretting in their worst run of the season, while City were just beginning to emerge from a post-World Cup blip. But still they’ll blame the referees.

    Arsenal are level at the top with a game in hand, but the sense of momentum has gone. It’s true they will win the league if they draw at City in April and win their other 15 games – and few before the season began would have predicted anything like that – but nobody at the club can be looking beyond Aston Villa on Saturday and getting out of this run of four games without a victory. Having dropped seven points in the first half of the season, they have let eight go in the first three games of the second. Eight-point leads, once squandered, are seldom regained.

    Guardiola says Arsenal still on top as Arteta bemoans Gunners’ ‘gifts’ to City – video

    The slump began at City in the FA Cup. At the time, a 1-0 defeat felt almost like the perfect result for Arsenal: even with a weakened team there had been no sense they couldn’t live with the champions and space had been opened in the calendar to focus on the more important competition. But that defeat broke the run.

    Nobody could realistically criticise Mikel Arteta for resting players given the slenderness of his squad, but it was as though that was the moment when, having gone chasing off the cliff, they glanced down and realised this progress wasn’t sustainable, that gravity was going to get them in the end.

    How much longer could they have gone on, defying football’s natural financial laws? There’s always misfortune to be blamed. Perhaps they were unlucky then to meet Everton enjoying the first (only?) game of a Sean Dyche bounce, but however tenacious Goodison’s new dogs of war were in midfield, there was also a sense Arsenal were flat. The zip had gone.

    Fatigue is almost impossible to prove in football and is often little more than a convenient post-hoc rationalisation. Only those with access to intimate medical data can say with any certainty whether players are physically exhausted and even those stats can’t account for mental weariness. But the fear for Arsenal had always been they would run out of steam and, recently, steam has looked in very short supply.

    Against Brentford, the VAR official, Lee Mason, was understandably blamed for becoming so fixated on a possible blocking run by Ethan Pinnock that he failed to consider whether Christian Nørgaard was offside in squaring for Ivan Toney to equalise, but there is rarely only one factor at play. Brentford had by far the better chances in the first half: they could easily have been two or three up. To focus on that one refereeing error, to blame that for Arsenal’s sputter, is to ignore the bigger picture.

    Arsenal’s Takehiro Tomiyasu
    Takehiro Tomiyasu’s duff back pass allows Kevin De Bruyne to score for Manchester City. Photograph: David Klein/Reuters

    Arsenal had their chance against City. By Pep Guardiola’s own admission he got the tactics wrong in the first half, with Bernardo Silva an unconvincing left-back torn apart by Bukayo Saka. At half- time, Arsenal had had 59.5% of the ball. They had had opportunities. Eddie Nketiah had put a free header wide. Saka had dithered in a good position. City had struggled to create chance until Takehiro Tomiyasu’s duff back pass.

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    What if Arteta had stuck with Ben White at right-back? Even then, for those minded to do so, it was possible to look at the refereeing. What if Silva had been booked for his second or third foul on Saka rather than his fourth? Might he then have been sent off before Guardiola could reorganise? What might Arsenal have been able to do against 10 players?

    But Guardiola was able to rejig and City in the second half were by far the better side. They scored twice, had an effort cleared off the line and were denied a penalty only by a narrow offside. Might it have been different had Thomas Partey been fit or Arsenal managed to sign Moisés Caicedo rather than Jorginho as back-up? Might they have had more of a chance of regaining the initiative had they landed Mykhaylo Mudryk rather than Leandro Trossard?

    Mikel Arteta speaks to Arsenal’s players during the defeat by Manchester City.
    Mikel Arteta speaks to Arsenal’s players during the defeat by Manchester City. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

    Perhaps, and that leads to a form of economic determinism that perhaps comes closest to an overall explanation for who wins titles: City have the most resources, so they can afford the best manager and the best players and provide for them the best facilities. Perhaps financial gravity was always going to catch up with Arsenal. But such things are rarely singular or simple and there may be twists in this season’s title race. Arsenal may come again but it doesn’t seem likely.

    What if the Queen hadn’t died when she did? What if the game had been played in October? For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.

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    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )