I wonder why Mikel Arteta decided that he wanted to do the press conference yesterday?
The cynic in me says that, as we reach the pinnacle of the drama on this season, he wants to double down on his usual approach of leaving injury problems even more open in the air, by adding day before we play, as an extra bit of speculation. Indeed, the injury update was just that, with him saying “not much at the moment” when asked about the team news. So we’re nowhere closer to knowing if Calafiori is fit, or Timber, although I guess if you want to look for some crumbs of positivity on the injury news front, at least Arteta said: “he’s progressed a little bit in the last few days”. I don’t really think that will be enough for him to be in the squad, but if you’re looking at him possibly having some involvement on Sunday next week away to Palace, that might give us some hope he could play a part in the Champions League final too.
He was asked as to whether Calafiori could play right back, which I thought was a kind of bizarre question, to be honest. The way the Italian plays left-back is so niche that I’m not sure that you could just invert him onto the other side and away you go. I’m just not sure it would work.
As would be suspected, given Ben White’s injury, most of the chatter was about who he plays in at right back. He referenced the fact Rice played there against Brighton earlier in the season, then semi-acknowledged it didn’t work on Sunday, simply saying it was “something else”. You’ll never get Arteta saying negative things about any players, but that was a tacit admission of a bit of a cock up on his part last weekend, so I suspect he’ll go back to basics on Monday night with Mosquera in there. He didn’t admit that, he even said there were a few ‘options’ that he wanted to look at, but I’d be surprised if we see anything else this season other than the young Spaniard at right back. According to TransferMarkt, [he’s played right back just once](https://www.transfermarkt.com/cristhian-mosquera/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/646750/pos/5/saison/2025) for a full 90 this season, which was at home to Sporting Lisbon. Now, that data might be a little out, because they’re saying he was a centre-half against West Ham, which we all know wasn’t right, but I’m trying to rack my brains on those times at right back and I’m not coming up with loads of examples. Again, according to TransferMarkt, he’s had a total of 211 minutes there this season, which feels like a slight worry, and with Summerville showing him a clean pair of heels last weekend, you do wonder about how viable it is for Palace and then the Champions league final. There’s absolutely no way that Palace and PSG won’t target him if Timber isn’t fit, so I hope this week in training has seen the defensive coaches give him a _fast-track to right back_ crash course. It feels like he might need it.
A lot of the other questions he was asked were a bit ‘meh’ in my opinion. He was asked a few times about the City situation and the Bournemouth game, but he played the straightest of bats and simply dismissed the conversation, simply saying things like “focus on Burnley”, which is absolutely the right thing to do right now. We can’t have any hint of a team underestimating an opponent, regardless of the current situation they find themselves in, in the Premier League. He simply can’t entertain questions like “do you have one hand on the trophy?” at this stage; he and his players need to be laser-focused on Monday night, to make sure they do their job and just expect it to go to the final game of the season.
Other than that, I’m really not sure what else is worth talking about from the press conference. It looked a very bland press conference from where I’m sitting, which is kind of a good thing given how close we are to the end of the season. These kinds of press conferences have the potential to be journo fuel for a potential story, but Arteta did what was required as part of his media duties, and now it is about getting on that training ground and preparing for the Clarets.
I had to check myself for a second there, because I was about to say “Scott Parker will have his say today”, but then realised that actually it is Mike Jackson who is in charge. Plus, he’s already had his press conference! Their news is that Hannibal Mejbri could be fit, but the rest of the team is pretty much available. Which means that unfortunately we’ll probably end up seeing Kyle Walker take to the field, which isn’t ideal. Jackson’s general comments were pretty much as expected though; asked the players to ‘thrive’ in that kind of environment, admitted there would be some exits, said he was sad for Scott Parker. There’s not a lot else that I took from it to be honest, but then again, the guy is filling in for the last few games of the season, so I’m not really sure what else he is supposed to say.
And so I’ll toddle off for today, I think. I was asked yesterday to give some thoughts on the VAR debate after the West Ham game for BBC Sport, [which you can read here](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal?post=c8xw52wyrljo#post) if you want a bit of bonus reading. Other than that, I’ll catch you all tomorrow.
Laters peeps.