\u00c1lex Baena has spoken openly about Mart\u00edn Zubimendi, with the Atl\u00e9tico Madrid and Spain midfielder saying he would welcome the Arsenal man to La Liga and describing him as the \u201csecond-best defensive midfielder in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zubimendi arrived at Arsenal to help cover the exits of Jorginho and Thomas Partey, and his first months suggested the move could shape the club\u2019s midfield for years to come. Midway through the 2025 summer window, he was already being viewed as one of the standout signings of the market, with Arteta regularly praising his influence.<\/p>\n
That admiration was underlined after Zubimendi scored the first brace of his senior career in a 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest in September 2025. On that occasion, Arteta said: \u201cMart\u00edn is bringing such a presence, composure and understanding of the game that makes the team flow and play better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet his standing has not remained the same. While he still finished the campaign with 57 appearances in all competitions as Arsenal won the league title, his influence faded towards the end of the season. That pattern has continued into the current campaign, where he has become more peripheral under Arteta.<\/p>\n
The speculation has been fuelled by reports in Spain that Atl\u00e9tico could be interested in a winter move, while The Standard has reported that Arsenal are not actively seeking to sell him but could be open to the right offer.<\/p>\n
Baena\u2019s comments came after a difficult spell for Atl\u00e9tico, who lost back-to-back home games to Bayern Munich and Barcelona before the international break and dropped to third in La Liga. With Koke\u2019s future also a consideration, midfield depth remains a question for the club.<\/p>\n
Zubimendi made Luis de la Fuente\u2019s World Cup squad but only played seven minutes, and at Arsenal he has since slipped further down the pecking order after the summer arrival of Bruno Guimar\u00e3es. He has made just three Premier League starts and has been limited to 100 Premier League minutes across seven appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Baena has backed Zubimendi for a La Liga return as Arsenal\u2019s midfielder faces<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1035],"tags":[1047,180,182],"class_list":["post-22376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-atletico-madrid","tag-champions-league","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22376","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=22376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}