Noni Madueke has been clear that his summer departure from Chelsea carries no ill feeling as he prepares for his first match against his former club. The England international\u2019s arrival at Arsenal was handled as a business transaction by the club and the player, and Madueke says he has moved on.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old\u2019s opening months at Arsenal were interrupted by a knee injury, but he marked the club\u2019s statement Champions League win over Bayern Munich with his first goal for the Gunners. After eyebrows were raised at the transfer fee, the strike offered a response to critics.<\/p>\n
” [Proving doubters wrong] was a little factor, for sure,” he told TNT Sports postgame. When asked whether negativity had increased his determination at Arsenal he added: “I\u2019m a confident player so I don\u2019t really like anyone telling me that I can\u2019t do something. But it\u2019s my teammates and the staff, how they\u2019ve taken to me and the belief they have in me [which is] the real reason I want to do my thing and give back, play really well and help us win trophies.”<\/p>\n
Madueke allowed himself a knowing smile when referencing “another big one” coming up against Chelsea, though his words suggested no lingering grudge. “We will have to wait and see, it\u2019s first vs. second, but they are a top team, we have a top team, so it will be a good game, God willing, we get the result we want,” Madueke said.<\/p>\n
He did not start against Bayern, having returned from injury as a substitute in the victorious north London derby. When Leandro Trossard was forced off in the first half, Madueke ended up playing more than half the game.<\/p>\n
Mikel Arteta, who backed the signing despite the player\u2019s modest numbers at Chelsea, welcomed the attacking player\u2019s impact. “He\u2019s worked incredibly hard to come back,” Arteta told reporters. “I think he was in a great moment before he got the injuries. He\u2019s one of the players who was performing at the highest level and now we\u2019ve got him back. ]”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Noni Madueke insists there is no bad blood with Chelsea as he prepares for his first reunion next up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4724,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,190,172],"tags":[1081,1047],"class_list":["post-4725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725","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=4725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}