Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta will be facing the media ahead of the final Premier League clash of the season at home to Wolves and we have got all the updates from London Colney.
Hello and welcome along to live coverage of the Arsenal press conference ahead of the Gunners' final Premier League fixture of the season against Wolves.
Both teams have little to play for with the Gunners confirmed in second place although Wolves could move above Chelsea if they beat Arsenal and could fall as low as 15th should both West Ham and Bournemouth below them win. In fact, the Hammers would just need a draw and for Wolves to lose to leapfrog them.
However, with the season having promised so much, Arteta will surely want to go out strongly and also maintain as close a gap to the top come the end of the season as possible. Injuries to Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Martinelli and William Saliba persist and none are expected to return for the final game.
Bukayo Saka has recently signed a new contract whilst Reiss Nelson has reportedly agreed to one himself. The Arsenal boss is sure to be asked on this as well as potential summer plans in the transfer window.
You can hear what Arteta has to say on all these issues with football.london's Arsenal writers Kaya Kaynak and Tom Canton in the live blog below.
We have three or four hundred candidates
He’s done a great job again. He got the club in a really difficult position and he has transformed results to be safe quicker than anyone expected
We are reflecting on that. There are a lot of things that have been done really well.
I think he will be really close. Hopefully he will be around preseason, like Willy to be in a good place. They have been working so hard. He’s a tremendous person, he’s a top professional and we just want him to be available.
No. I cannot talk and I won’t talk about any future of any players or members of staff. We have to wrap up the season.
Great news for the club. The club has done a great job. He’s a crucial player for us who represents our club in the best possible way. Hopefully there are a few more to come.
It’s probably too early to say. I think it’s evolving the right way. The last two weeks have been much more positive than the previous two months.
We had some issues this week. In the last few weeks some players were unable to play. With Reiss, we had a little with Bukayo which has been going for a few weeks and with Leo.
It may have ended in disappointment but this Arsenal season is one that few will forget. The Gunners went into the campaign, not even as favourites to make the top four, before defying the odds to push Manchester City all the way for the title.
"There’s no question about that," said Mikel Arteta when asked after the 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest about the progress his side had made. "I’m not questioning that at all"
While some may view it as a half-glass empty season, there are plenty who will still want to remember it in every detail. Here football.london 's Arsenal writers take a look back at the moments of the campaign.
Read what our writer's moments of the season were here.
There is absolutely no need for Bukayo Saka to play in these two England Euro Qualifiers. With all due respect to both Malta and North Macedonia, the Three Lions should be winning these games relatively comfortably.
Granted North Macedonia have a scalp over Italy as recently as last year however, the England squad has the depth and firepower available to deal with the challenges of these two fixtures. It surely is a greater necessity to protect the players in the group, such as Saka, no, particularly Saka, from serious injury through burnout.
Should Saka take part in the matches for England, the likelihood is that the newly renewed Arsenal starlet will take his minutes for the season over 5000. His participation in nine different competitions from preseason friendlies to the World Cup and Europa League, in addition to the English domestic league and cup matches, has seen an evident dip in form come the end of the campaign.
Read the full open letter here.
Once again Arsenal have seemingly pulled a contract out of nowhere in the 11th hour of a deal. We’ve seen Eddie Nketiah and Folarin Balogun both recently renew their deals despite it seeming more likely they would leave.
Now, according to The Athletic, Reiss Nelson is set to agree a new four-year deal with the club despite it looking increasingly likely he would leave for free at the end of the season. It’s a pleasing decision, but at the same time questions remain.
No doubt Nelson has caused a complete 180-degree turn in my own view over the past year. I genuinely saw little-to-no benefit for Arsenal in keeping the youngster beyond this season back in 2022.
Read the full story here.
Kieran Gibbs has urged Arsenal to not sell defender Kieran Tierney during this summer's transfer window.
Tierney had been one of the first names on Mikel Arteta's teamsheet prior to this season, with Oleksandr Zinchenko displacing the Scottish international in Arteta's starting XI this term. Zinchenko's ability to invert into midfield helped the north Londoners become a more dominant team, becoming much better in the build-up phase.
Despite the Ukrainian international picking up an injury earlier this month, Tierney still found himself on the bench over the weekend when the Gunners took on Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon, indicating that he may not be in Arteta's future plans. The 25-year-old has been linked with a move to the likes of Newcastle United and Aston Villa but former Arsenal full-back Gibbs has told his old side not to sell the marauding left-back.
Read the full story here.
Following back-to-back losses at the hands of Brighton & Hove Albion and Nottingham Forest, Arsenal now find themselves eight points behind Pep Guardiola's side and won't want that margin to extend otherwise their hard work over the past nine months perhaps won't be represented.
Recent history does bode well for the north London outfit as they've won the last three meetings between the two sides. It is a sequence that Arteta will be hopeful of continuing and ahead of the big game, he and his coaching staff put the first-team squad – and a few youngsters – through their paces during a training session at London Colney.
Read what football.london noticed from the footage that has been released by the club's official website here.
Arsenal have officially launched their brand new home kit for the 2023/24 season. Once again they will be kitted out by Adidas with the German manufacturers' latest effort paying homage to the 20-year anniversary of the Invincibles side.
"Our new kit draws on the spirit of The Invincibles team of 2003/04, marking the beginning of the 20th anniversary of our unbeaten Premier League season," a statement reads via the club's official website. "Our crest and Adidas logo and three stripes down each sleeve feature in gold, and our record of 26 wins and 12 draws over 38 games in that historic season is stitched into the side of the authentic version of the kit.
"Twenty years on from that incredible achievement, we aim to carry forward the values, spirit and togetherness of the 2003/04 squad."
Read the full story here.
Hello and welcome to football.london's coverage of of Mikel Arteta's pre-match press conference ahead of Arsenal's Premier League clash with Wolves.
Kaya Kaynak is at London Colney ready to hear from the Arsenal boss.