Fresh off his contract extension with the club, Mikel Arteta faced the media ahead of Arsenal crunch clash with their arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspurs.

As expected, Arteta addressed the latest news which involved him extending his contract with Arsenal, and he spoke about how excited he was to continue the project and how Arsenal had the same alignment with him in terms of his ambitions and the plans currently put in place to achieve them. Arsenal has spent heavily in the transfer window to back their gaffer and you can look no further than the British record transfer fee that was paid for Declan Rice’s services. With Arteta at the helm, Arsenal is well suited to continue challenging Manchester City to win the Premier League and we expect the club to be at the upper echelon of the division at the end of the campaign.

The next part of the presser, which was very vital, was injury news. Martin Odegaard suffered an ankle injury on international duty and the Norwegian team doctor spoke to the journos, stating that the Arsenal captain would be out for at least three weeks, which would see him miss the Premier League games against Tottenham, Manchester City, Leicester and Southampton, as well as the Champions League games against Atalanta and Shakhtar Donetsk, as well as the EFL Cup match against Bolton Wanderers. In typical Arteta fashion, the gaffer didn’t give any clear information about Odegaard, stating that there’d be some tests to be conducted and Arsenal would ascertain his situation in the next 48 hours.

There were more injury updates regarding Mikel Merino, Riccardo Calafiori and Gabriel Jesus, and it seems like Jesus was the only player we had positive news on,

“Gabby was out there, he’s got another session tomorrow and if everything goes well he will be ready to be selected in this squad which is great news for us.”

With Odegaard potentially out, Kai Havertz is odds on to drop back to midfield and operate as the No. 10 with Thomas Partey and Jorginho in the defensive pivot, allowing Jesus to spearhead the attack alongside Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard / Gabi Martinelli.

The gaffer was asked about the potential involvement of Raheem Sterling, causing the boss to speak about his hunger and intensity, as well as how he’s eager to impress and make his mark in this team, after he was treated like trash at Chelsea. Sterling is going to be wildcard for us this season and his experience and attacking abilities will come in handy this season. He also offers us a great depth option and unlike Reiss Nelson that Arteta had zero trust for, Sterling will get a lot of minutes at Arsenal.

There was some stuff about Tottenham but I really don’t care about that lot, so I’m not gonna delve into that.

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The ‘magician’ likely to make rare start for Arsenal against Tottenham

Arsenal haven’t got long to wait until they return to Premier League action in probably the most high-stakes fixture in their calendar.

Although the Gunners will have some important games against their title and top-four rivals, fans will be especially eager to win the North London derby.

Arsenal

will be heading to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, with both sets of fans desperate to sabotage the other club’s early-season efforts and claim bragging rights.

Obviously there are also points at stake, and both the Gunners and Spurs are already in a position where they cannot get any more bad results.

Arsenal need to be as close to perfect as they can if they are to dethrone a Manchester City side that has won their opening three games.

Meanwhile, Spurs could’ve easily gained nine points from their opening three games, but they’ve come away with just four points due to issues at the front and back.

To make things worse for Arsenal, they have quite a few personnel issues, so Mikel Arteta has some thinking to do in terms of his starting XI.

The likelihood is that a player described as a “magician” could come in for a relatively rare start for the Gunners in the crunch clash at N17.