My Arsenal Blog

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has challenged Dani Ceballos to regain full fitness and work hard to win a place in his team.

Ceballos joined the Gunners on a season-long loan from Real Madrid last summer, and so far he has racked up 17 games in the club shirt in all competitions, scoring once and assisting twice. He missed almost two months of action through a torn muscle bundle, and upon his return from injury, speculative reports appeared about him potentially wanting to cut the loan short in January. Apparently, he is very keen on securing enough game-time for Spain boss Luis Enrique to take him into account when contemplating the list of players he might want to take to the European Championship this year.  .......Read more here.....

This weekend will see the return of the FA Cup once again, just a few weeks after the third round, as the fourth round of action gets underway. Arsenal will be in action once again in what equates to the last 32, as they prepare to travel down to Bournemouth in order to face the Cherries for the second time in a matter of months. It’s one of those games which is bound to test the metal and steel of this Arsenal team, but we can’t quite figure out how much Mikel Arteta wants to win this competition.  .......Read more here.....

The FA Cup continues this weekend as the field is dwindled down to 16 teams with the race to reach Wembley hotting up. Arsenal will face a trip to the south coast in order to take on Bournemouth which, in itself, should serve as a pretty intriguing game.

Today we want to take a quick look at the team news situation courtesy of the club themselves, in what is bound to be another tricky game against the Cherries – despite their recent form.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Suspended. Further to receiving a red card at Crystal Palace (a) on January 11, suspended for Monday’s game at Bournemouth.  .......Read more here.....

Arsenal are reportedly in talks with Shakhtar Donetsk over the possibility of signing Mykola Matviyenko.

If you’ve been following Shakhtar lately, or at least seen them in the Champions League clashes they had with Manchester City this season, you probably know who this player is and have some general idea of what can be expected of him. Matviyenko is a defender, 23 years old, preferring to use his left foot on the ball and to play in the heart of the back line, though he is also fully capable of playing on either defensive flank. Standing 6′ tall, he is quite good in the air while boasting decent pace and skill with the ball on the ground too.  .......Read more here.....

Pointing fingers has always been a popular thing for people to do in this game, because it’s often much easier than accepting any of the blame. However, in certain instances, the finger pointing is more than worth it – especially when it comes to Shkodran Mustafi.

The controversial defender was back in the starting XI for the game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, with the hope being that he would be able to rise above the criticisms he’s been receiving as of late by putting in a decent shift. If you watched his second half performance and nothing else, then you could argue that he had a good game. Aside from that, though, there wasn’t really all too much to scream and about, unless you were doing so in frustration.  .......Read more here.....

Arsenal came to fight against Chelsea and while they weren’t quite able to secure the three points at Stamford Bridge, they certainly made a statement as they came from behind twice to claim a point against the Blues – even with ten men.

A Shkodran Mustafi error caused David Luiz to make a rash challenge on Tammy Abraham, and just like that, he was sent off and Jorginho scored from the penalty spot. Despite that, though, there was seemingly a route back into the game for the Gunners if they decided to rely on their youngsters – which includes Gabriel Martinelli who went on a fantastic run before slotting home a wonderful solo goal.  .......Read more here.....

Arsenal produced a rather remarkable comeback from two goals and a man down to snatch a point at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea on Tuesday. It makes a change most welcome to what we’ve been seeing lately – too often the Gunners were the ones to throw away leads and drop points from winning positions.

Striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, now the team captain, had just started serving his three-match ban after picking up a direct red card against Crystal Palace, when up pops a whole new problem of the same sort.  .......Read more here.....

On whether he has any complaints about the red card:
If I have?

On whether it was double jeopardy:
I don’t know. I watched it from different angles and from different angles it looked different. They made a decision and we have to accept it.  .......Read more here.....

While Arsenal didn’t quite manage to come away with all three points against Chelsea, there’s still a bizarre sense of renewed optimism within the Emirates in the wake of the 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge last night. They need to start turning these points into wins, but as Arteta has stated, there are reasons to be proud of this team as we look ahead to the future.  .......Read more here.....

On what he learned about his team from the previous Chelsea game:
It’s different from then to now. I loved the first 30 to 35 minutes and the way we went about it. How aggressive we were, how much we wanted to attack them and put them under pressure – it’s the kind of way that we wanted to play. After that, we had a little bit of a setback. They changed the system and we found it a little bit more difficult to deal with that. We started to defend deep without really conceding anything, and had some great opportunities on the break as well. I think physically for us in that moment it was harder for us to maintain the same amount of energy. Against Chelsea, that’s vital.  .......Read more here.....