Mart\u00edn Zubimendi has set out the dressing room view on why Arsenal fell short in recent title races: injuries. The midfielder, who joined from Real Sociedad this summer, said team-mates made clear that the squad repeatedly unravelled when key players were sidelined.<\/p>\n
Adding depth across the squad was a stated summer priority and Arsenal recruited heavily. Zubimendi arrived from Real Sociedad alongside Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, Noni Madueke, Eberechi Eze, Piero Hincapi\u00e9, Cristhian Mosquera, Christian N\u00f8rgaard and Kepa Arrizabalaga. The signings were intended to ensure the club could cope when injuries occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what teammates have said to me, the problem was the injuries, that when someone got injured, the team came undone,\u201d Zubimendi told The Guardian. \u201cThis year the club has invested a lot in having two players in every position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zubimendi\u2019s move to the Premier League came later than many expected. His arrival this summer followed a season in which he was a standout performer for Sociedad in 2024, and it came 12 months later than most anticipated. He had been close to joining Arne Slot’s Liverpool before withdrawing from talks, and Real Madrid also expressed interest, but it was Arsenal who ultimately secured his signature.<\/p>\n
His decision was influenced by the timing of any proposal and by Arsenal\u2019s project. \u201cWhen any proposal comes, the first question has to be whether to stay at la Real,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t the right moment [to go]. I stayed and it was a hard season but I learned a lot. I wanted to step forward, take that weight after others went.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had watched Arsenal and I liked everything I saw, in terms of passion, youth, the feeling you got watching them. And when Mikel Arteta called me… Well, if you\u2019ve ever spoken to him you\u2019ll know that he can be very convincing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s mad about football, crazy about having everything under control, trying to get something from every little detail. He\u2019s very clear on everything and the proposal he had was the best for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The messages from Zubimendi underline why Arsenal prioritised squad depth in the transfer window and why the club believes redundancy across positions will be key in the 2025\/26 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zubimendi: Arsenal blamed injuries for past title failures; summer signings aimed to add more depth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1081,1133],"class_list":["post-3711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-martin-zubimendi-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711","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=3711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}