No rest for Arteta in summer shuffle
MIKEL ARTETA is ready to hold frank conversations with his staff to ensure Arsenal hit the ground running next season.
And as part of his honest and open postseason review, Arteta admitted he will even look at himself and where he can improve.
Arsenal are destined for a third successive campaign as Premier League runners-up ahead of today’s final game at Southampton.
Their Champions League run ended with semi-final heartache and Arteta says it’s now vital that the Gunners continue to scale new heights to ensure they can go one better.
The Arsenal boss said: “I will do that (my own review) and I am not going to tell you what it is but I am going to do that for sure.
“Our review goes every two months. We will have one next week.
“I will take all that and go to Spain, somewhere very
Today, 4pm
quiet and start to go through that with some ideas that I already have.
“It is about putting that into a plan. Then everybody is aligned and ready when they walk through that door.”
It’s a summer that Arsenal can ill afford to get wrong with planning for next term having already begun under new sporting director Andrea Berta.
A new midfielder is planned, with Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi (below) hoping to be the first arrival.
But it’s in attack where at least one new striker remains a priority.
Arteta said: “We all talk – upstairs (in boardroom), with the players, and that is very transparent.
“That is the culture that we have created. “If you bring a problem, bring solutions to that problem quickly and we can share it and we can make the right decision
after that.”