Mart\u00edn Zubimendi has moved to calm speculation about his future, insisting he is focused on winning a place in the side rather than discussing a possible Arsenal exit. With his minutes reduced and Bruno Guimar\u00e3es arriving last summer to take a prominent role, rumours have grown around the midfielder. Zubimendi, though, says there is no real basis to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t wasted any energy on outside things,\u201d Zubimendi told MARCA when quizzed about the rumors. \u201cI\u2019m busy enough trying to earn a place, get playing time, and fight to win this Premier League , which is looking so promising. I haven\u2019t spent any energy on it, nor have I contacted anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also pushed back against the way speculation has gathered pace as the winter window approaches. \u201cTo be honest, I\u2019m sometimes surprised by the press too. I understand that the winter transfer window is approaching and rumors can surface, but I think we need to be a bit more careful with what we publish.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, everyone has a team they play for, and we need to respect that. I\u2019ve also read that I might be close [to joining Atl\u00e9tico Madrid], but not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked directly whether he expects to remain with the Gunners through the end of the season, he replied: \u201cYes, I hope so. I\u2019m happy there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old also reflected on the physical demands of last season, when he was heavily involved. \u201cI don\u2019t like to blame everything on my physical condition, but I definitely noticed it [last] year,\u201d said the Spaniard. \u201cIt was a new year for me, with a lot of new stimuli. I played a huge number of minutes and, to be honest, I was tired. Then there were other things too, but one of them could very well have been my physical condition.\u201d<\/p>\n
His challenge now is getting back into Mikel Arteta\u2019s midfield plans. Declan Rice and captain Martin \u00d8degaard are established starters, while Zubimendi is competing with Mikel Merino, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Guimar\u00e3es for the remaining spot. Even so, he insists patience is part of the process. \u201cI\u2019m patient,\u201d Zubimendi replied when asked about his waning influence. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve been playing a lot of minutes and your role changes to not playing as much, I\u2019m able to see the positive side. I think everything passes, that just like last year the opposite happened to me and I played practically everything, this can change very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zubimendi says he is focused on Arsenal and hopes to stay through this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[59,180,182],"class_list":["post-22402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-featured","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22402","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=22402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}