Every word Mikel Arteta said before the Bournemouth friendly

In an interview last week, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta outlined his priorities ahead of the pre-season tour and explained how the team can improve and do better this time around. After Arsenal trained in Los Angeles as part of their pre-season preparations, Mikel Arteta discussed several matters including Tomiyasu’s injury, Riccardo Calafiori’s transfer, Jurrien Timber’s return to the first team, and many more.

On Tomiyasu’s injury

Arsenal defender Takehiro Tomiyasu will not be a part of Arsenal’s pre-season tour because of a knee injury he picked up in training. The Japanese international will continue to serve on the sidelines who missed 13 games last season due to a calf injury on two separate occasions.

Arteta said: “It is unbelievable because the kid works so hard. He had an incident in training this week and we don’t know yet the extent of that [knee] injury but as a precaution, we kept him [in England]. We’ll see what happens.”

Transfer update on Riccardo Calafiori?

The Gunners are edging closer towards a deal for Bologna defender Riccardo Calafiori who was regarded as one of the best defenders in the Serie A last season. Arsenal are closing in on a deal of £ 42 million for the Italian defender who is expected to make an instant impact at the Emirates. But Mikel Arteta remained coy on Calafiori’s transfer.

He said: “No unfortunately not but obviously we know there are certain positions that we want to improve and give the squad better resources in terms of numbers where we are short but we will try our best but the main thing is to focus on falling in love with the players we have and make them better.”

Jurrien Timber return

The Dutch defender is eyeing a return to the starting lineup since he sustained an unfortunate ACL injury on the opening weekend of the 2023/24 Premier League season. Timber remained out for the entire season and hopes to make a return ahead of the 2024/25 season.

Arteta said: “He is a winner, you can see that in his body language, the way he acts, he has worked so hard, I think he is in a really good place at the moment, we are going to have to manage him now in the next few weeks because the load he has been able to do in the last few months compared to the next two weeks is very different but we are very excited about.”

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