Mikel Arteta has revealed he had doubts about whether Arsenal would be able to pull off the signing of Riccardo Calafiori but says the Italian was “adamant” he wanted to join.
Callafiori has completed his move to the club from Bologna for a fee believed to be in the region of £40m.
The Gunners had to fight off interest from the likes of Juventus and Bayern Munich for the defender but Arteta says Calafiori was insistent that he wanted to join Arsenal.
“It was great, I spoke to him one or two times and I knew other things so I wasn’t really sure if we could do it or not,” Arteta said.
“He was adamant – ‘let me know when you are ready, my bags are ready and I just want to come to Arsenal’.
“Those were his words and when you have that feeling and someone with that willingness to join us and to make us better, and that determination, it’s something really powerful.
“I think as a club we should be very proud of that.”
The versatile defender is capable of playing in both central defence and at left-back, and Arteta says he sees him featuring in both areas.
“Both positions, especially with the way we want to play and the things that we want to evolve in our game model,” he said.
“He’s a player that is going to fit really well what we want.
“He is a player that we have monitored for over a year. We were really short in the back line last season in terms of numbers and we demanded so much from them (the defence).
“We identified him as a player and a talent that can give us the skills and qualities that are going to make us better and we’re signing a player who still has huge capacity to develop.”
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