Mikel Arteta has spoken in broad terms about Arsenal\u2019s pursuit of \u201cexcellence\u201d this summer, but the clearest sense of momentum has emerged from events elsewhere. Reports of Eddie Howe\u2019s departure from Newcastle United have added fresh significance to the club\u2019s transfer plans, with Bruno Guimaraes now central to the discussion.<\/p>\n
The Telegraph reported that Howe had been pushed toward stepping down at St James\u2019 Park because of the club\u2019s transfer dealings. According to that report, he is believed to have left with the view that Guimaraes will be sold to Arsenal, after Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali were already among the high-profile exits this summer.<\/p>\n
Howe had said only last week that he was not part of talks over the Brazilian midfielder\u2019s future and did not know what would happen next. Arsenal, after seeing their first bids turned away, are now said to be preparing an improved offer of $93.2 million (\u00a370 million).<\/p>\n
Arteta, speaking from Arsenal\u2019s preseason camp in Spain, made clear that the club\u2019s ambitions stretch beyond a single signing. \u201cA lot is happening,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom ownership to the board, the sporting director and myself, we know that we want to take this club to a different level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is going to require a better squad, better individuals. We have identified where we have opportunities to grow and to improve and to evolve our game and what is going to be needed to achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsenal won their first Premier League title since 2004 in May and reached the Champions League final, where they lost to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties. Even so, the campaign exposed clear limitations, with a heavy dependence on the technical quality of Martin \u00d8degaard and Kai Havertz, both of whom were affected by injuries.<\/p>\n
That left set pieces as a major route to success, though stricter rules may reduce that advantage. Guimaraes has been identified as someone who could support Arsenal\u2019s creators, while one of Vin\u00edcius Jr or Alvarez would ideally strengthen a frontline that can still lack inspiration.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully very soon we can start to put things in a very concrete way,\u201d Arteta added. \u201cExcellence has to be our standard and this has to drive to attack the future. The way we behave daily with more and more determination and ambition because we’ve shown that we’ve got it.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we have to show that we belong to this level and we want to increase and take this football club to a different dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta\u2019s summer vision at Arsenal is clearer, with Bruno Guimaraes emerging as a key transfer focus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1843],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-transfer-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}