Mikel Arteta was speaking after Arsenal's 3-2 friendly defeat to Borussia Dortmund at the Emirates Stadium when he was pressed on the signing of Bruno Guimaraes and the prospect of more transfer deals going through
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been speaking on more transfers following the signing of Bruno Guimaraes
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Mikel Arteta insists Bruno Guimaraes can take Arsenal to the next level. In Arteta's mind, that was something that became clear as soon as the Brazilian international first stepped foot in the club's training ground.
The Gunners boss, speaking after the 3-2 friendly defeat to Borussia Dortmund, has hailed the £75million acquisition of the 28-year-old former Newcastle captain, who was presented at the Emirates Stadium before kick-off.
Arteta said: "I'm delighted to have him. Why? Well, we see very clearly, especially the energy that he brought immediately to the training ground.
"The hunger, the desire to come here. And I create a big history of the club and that ambition that we need.
"Obviously, we want to go to the next level and very, very much convinced that we're going to need players with such a personality, desire and character to push everybody inside the organisation to go even higher."
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Outside of crocked centre-back William Saliba, all of Arsenal's remaining World Cup stars are due back in training on Monday in a major boost for the Spaniard ahead of final warm-up matches against Como and Manchester City.
Arteta insists he cannot provide a timeline on when the Frenchman will be back but Jurrien Timber is still "weeks away" from being ready to return despite upping his recovery from a minor procedure on his groin.
He explained: "I cannot be very precise with that. Jurrien is progressing really well. He's on the pitch, he's doing quite a lot right now, but he's still weeks away.
"I cannot tell you how much and William is resting at the moment. For two weeks, he had to do almost nothing basically to not aggravate the injury. It's going to take some time to heal, we know that. And as quick as we have more news, we can inform."
Bruno Guimaraes
Bruno Guimaraes is now an Arsenal player(Image: Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
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Arteta has also made it clear the club are actively trying to strengthen their squad, explaining: "Well, that's what we're trying to do. If we have the right player in the market to make us much better, we are really looking forward to that."
When pushed by football.london on whether he was in for a new defender, he replied: "I wouldn't go there just to put an isolated there.
"We conceded some poor goals the other day, some poor goals today, and the way we competed especially. But that's a very collective responsibility. So we need to improve with the players that we have. And we want to improve, for sure."
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