Everyone is aware of how important this season is, for Mikel Arteta’s career as well as Arsenal Football Club, as he is tasked with getting the Gunners back into the top levels of the Premier League.
Not only has he been reshaping the team, but he also has a proper pre-season to prepare his players to be fit and ready to start the campaign in the best possible frame of mind to prove they are ready to challenge the best.
The Spaniard has been helped with the fact that not many of the squad were involved in the Euros and should be returning fresh and rested before the gruelling season begins.
This is what Arteta told Arsenal.com about his pre-season plans: “The first thing is that we’ve got time, something that we haven’t had since arrived here, to prepare a lot of things that are very necessary to develop.
“The second one, we chose Scotland – it was Kieran’s advice to be fair and I think he was spot on. It’s got everything that we need here. We are quiet, we are calm, we have really good facilities, we are not far from home just in case something happens in this COVID world. It’s been really good and we could have two really good games to start our preparation.
“America is about going away. We know the brand, the club that we represent, and that’s a global brand. We have to be there, we have to be close to our fans all around the world. That’s a huge opportunity for us to do that and we have our owners there that we can see, meet and get close to the team, which is a really positive thing as well.
“And then we have a tournament that had everything that we wanted: international teams, a Premier League team, and we can start to raise the level in our preparation.”
I know there are quite a few Arsenal fans that are fully expecting Arteta to fail again this season, but we can all see that this is the first time that he has been able to have a relaxed and settled preparation time. He will also be aware that he can now have no excuses for the season ahead.
Let’s all hope that we come flying out of the traps in style and have a successful 2021/22 season….