Morning.
There are a few bits and pieces going on, starting with some quotes from Mikel Arteta ahead of the game against Bournemouth on Wednesday evening. Having come so close to the title last season, the challenge begins again, and the manager says his team will have to improve in order to become champions, saying:
Perfection in this league requires different standards to relate that world to winning the Premier League. That’s what we need to do, we need to upgrade everything we’re doing and improve in every area. That’s what we’re trying to do.
It’s a tall order, of course, because if you win 30 games in a season and don’t win the league, it must be so hard to shake the feeling that there’s not much more you can do. Except, I suppose, win 31 games. Or 32, or whatever it takes. Part of doing that is building the squad again, recruitment and reinforcement will become the buzzwords as we get closer to the start of the new Premier League season, and obviously that was something Arteta was asked about.
Quizzed on any potential transfer updates, in particular with regards Riccardo Calafiori, he said:
We know there are certain positions that we want to improve and give the squad better resources, especially in terms of numbers where we are very short. 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.
Some might roll their eyes over the second line there, but getting more out of the players we already have is, to me at least, unquestionably as important as bringing in new players. I think of Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus, two players who – for various reasons, but mostly injury – didn’t come close to producing enough in terms of goals and assists last season. I think we can get even more from Kai Havertz and Martin Odegaard. It’s probably greedy to expect Bukayo Saka to deliver more than the 30 goal involvements he had in all competitions, but I bet he’s determined to…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/07/arteta-targets-upgrades-and-improvements/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-07-23 06:54:50
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
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Author : soccernews
Publish date : 2024-07-23 06:57:43
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.