Cristhian Mosquera arrived at Arsenal this summer after a brief transfer scramble that involved Liverpool, Chelsea and overtures from Real Madrid. Once it became clear that Mosquera would not be renewing a contract which was set to expire in 2026, a bidding war soon emerged. Yet it was Arsenal who snapped him up for a modest \u20ac15 million (\u00a313.3 million, $17.4 million).<\/p>\n
His preference for the club predated the move. \u201cI always watched the Premier League. In fact, my team was Arsenal,\u201d Mosquera recently revealed to The Guardian. The conversation that followed with Mikel Arteta was decisive. \u201cBefore I had decided, someone in my camp said: \u2018The moment you speak to Mikel, there\u2019s no way he won\u2019t convince you.\u2019 And that\u2019s exactly how it happened,\u201d Mosquera recalled. \u201cWhen the call finished, my destination couldn\u2019t have been clearer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mosquera has been fulsome about the coach who persuaded him. \u201cHe really lives for football, he was raised on it, experienced everything,\u201d Mosquera said of Arteta. \u201cYou see that when he talks. He loves the detail, sees things other eyes might not. I\u2019m so happy with him. He\u2019s an incredible person and he\u2019s helping me a lot. The staff have made it easy. Arsenal is an incredible club.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 21, Mosquera has already stepped into the first team and \u201cfilled in seamlessly for both of Arsenal\u2019s first-choice centre backs when the time has come\u201d and may be required again in next weekend\u2019s north London derby following a groin injury for Gabriel. He has conceded just three goals during his time on the pitch for Arsenal this season and has played a role in the club\u2019s strong defensive record.<\/p>\n
Mosquera is clear on the team’s priorities. \u201cThe key is balance: it\u2019s not just defending, and that\u2019s not just the defenders,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cBut people talk about the defensive part because of the stats, and it is fundamental teams don\u2019t score against us. And the numbers are crazy,\u201d he added. Even after shipping two goals to Sunderland last weekend, Arsenal have still only conceded five times across 17 matches, keeping 13 clean sheets along the way. \u201cThe goal is our house and no one is allowed in, no one is allowed near our area,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mosquera says Arteta convinced him to join Arsenal and highlights the team’s defensive balance. This.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1163],"tags":[1081,1077,199],"class_list":["post-4497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-transfers","tag-adaptation","tag-contract-renewal","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497","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=4497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}