Arteta: There’s plenty of business to do yet

MIKEL ARTETA admits there are still plenty of questions to be resolved for Arsenal in the transfer window but is confident business will happen in the coming weeks.

The Gunners have so far recruited England defender Ben White from Brighton as well as midfielder Albert Lokonga from Anderlecht and Benfica full-back Nuno Tavares.

They have been linked with a host of other names as Arteta looks to build a squad capable of improving on back-to-back eighth-place Premier League finishes. The likes of James Maddison, Aaron Ramsdale, Martin Odegaard – after his loan spell last term – and Houssem Aouar have all been listed as targets.

But Arsenal open the new season away at newly promoted Brentford tonight with just the three signings landed earlier in the window.

‘In this first period of the transfer window I think we’ve done a few things we wanted to do and it’s going to help us to get the squad in a much better place,’ Arteta (pictured) said when asked how he judged Arsenal’s business so far.

‘There is still a bit of the window to go, so I’m sure that things will happen either way. We identified what we wanted to do and how we can strengthen our team in the short, medium and long term, and what we needed to achieve that.

‘We defined the profile of player that suits the model we have at the moment at the club that can sustain our financial position, and we made three movements in relation to that.’ Despite being sure of further action, Arteta did say he was ‘willing to work’ with the players currently at his disposal. He also conceded Arsenal need to excite their fans by proving they can compete with traditional rivals. ‘Fans need to be excited and they need to see a team that is capable of competing with those teams because our history is related to that,’ the Gunners boss added. ‘Nobody can deny that. That’s the aim and that should be the objective. It is something at this time that is not possible to do on August 12 but is possible to do on the last day. There are a lot of question marks still to be resolved. It’s still pretty open.’

Fans need to be excited and to see a team capable of competing