Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta says he is confident that his squad is well suited to avoid a similar situation to last season, where he was left short in key positions at crucial times of the campaign.
The Gunners’ striker shortage following injuries to Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus left them needing to play midfielder Mikel Merino up front – including in the Champions League semi-final against PSG.
But the club have moved to bolster Arteta’s attack this summer, with Ebere Eze set to join other attacking signings in Viktor Gyokeres and Noni Madueke.
On whether players will now have to leave the club following those, and other, additions, Arteta was not convinced however.
“Well, we don’t know,” he said.
“When you shake the tree and when you bring more players, there are always things that can happen. I think the spirit of that is just to be more competitive, to be better, to learn from the past.
“I mean, with the squad that we had last year, we made life very, very difficult to ourselves.
“When you see the squads and the sizes of the other clubs and the resources that they have, at least that or more.
“So, we want to be in a place that we feel very comfortable, that we have the right level of competition in the team, but as well the right characters to co-operate and understand the roles and how those roles are going to change and how important it’s going to be to accept those roles.
“I think we are in a really good place.”
Asked whether his squad now might be too big, Arteta seemed surprised.
He replied: “Too big? I don’t know why we are too big. I don’t know what the rest have. They have 27, 29, 32 players in the squad.
“No, I think we have a really good balance of players, the versatility of the players, the understanding of the roles of those players, the mixture between the experience, youth, ambition I’m very happy with what we have and we are protected for what can happen as well, which I think is important.”
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I think Arteta is right. Now that he has the required tools I’m very convinced he’s going to deliver the goods!
In the past, our bench had been bereft of the support in the face of injuries or fatigue. This wasn’t so in the cases of our keen competitors, Liverpool and Man City.
For goodness sake Reiss Nelson is our homegrown chap, let’s maintain him and give him the necessary support and exposure.If we fail and allow him to go, he is going to thrive and become better elsewhere, then, we’ll go chasing him like we’ve seen in the case of Eze.
Forever Gooners, Good Show!
yupp.. the coach are very correct about his team. Arsenal are a huge team this year, and they’re still rolling even if they missing several of their big player ( saka, jesus, harvert etc ). Even if they release their big defender ( saliba, or gabriel ).. they still manage to shake & break some few leg in the PL. OK.