Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been speaking ahead of the new Premier League season.

Arteta held a press conference for journalists at the Sobha Realty Training Centre to preview Saturday's game against Wolves, which included Gooner Fanzine editor Layth Yousif on behalf of the newspaper he writes for, the Morning Star. 

Read on for everything that Arteta had to say on the eve of the new 2024-25 top flight campaign.

on if Jurrien Timber will be fit:

Jurrien will be in the squad tomorrow. Obviously he had a really tough period but he used it in a great way I think because he’s managed to get a lot of things done and improved in many areas except playing. He found it really helpful I think and now he’s ready and he has a chance.

on if Fabio Vieira will be fit:

We will check him now after training to see how he is but he looked to adapt to it.

on if Tomiyasu and Tierney are a bit further behind:

Yes, they will be a few weeks.

on if there are any other injury concerns:

No every else is fine.

on if we are ready for the start of the season:

We are really excited. We’ve been missing the competition for many weeks, it’s too long for us. We are so willing to start and so enthusiastic about it. We had a really challenging pre-season but we have managed to adapt and it was a great challenge for everyone to adapt with different groups, different stadiums, different conditions. We took it as an opportunity and a good challenge and the team has looked really sharp.

on William Saliba getting to a club record 50 wins in 65 games:

Yes but we’ll have to earn the right to beat a really good Wolves side and hopefully we can achieve that.

on Mikel taking 77 games to get to 50 wins with Arsenal:

That’s why we are much better than we used to be!

on his methods to keep his players’ minds sharp at all times:

This is the demands that we put on them internally, that they have to be much higher so that any team can put us in any position and that we feel the pressure, anf that’s the level that we have to hit every day here. If we do that then our levels will increase and everybody will benefit from that.

on rumours surrounding Mikel Merino:

You know that I cannot talk about any other players.

on whether he wants to strengthen his midfield:

I said after last season that we had two objectives, the main one and the most important one is to make sure that we are still very much in love with our players and find ways to improve them, and that is the main thing. Then if there are certain opportunities in the market, to improve the squad - certainly we have to look at that. That’s what we will be trying to do.

on whether more players will leave in the window:

The market is open so things can happen, so that’s always a possibility.

on what it takes to win the league after breaking club records in 2023-24:

Break more of those records again and earn more points because it won’t be enough. With the level that we are competing with, every season is getting harder. We are going to have to improve again for sure.

on being perfect to win the league:

I don’t know what perfect is, but it has to be very close to the numbers we’ve seen in recent years.

on competing for the title again:

It’s great. When you’re looking ahead and when you see everything that we are doing and everybody is so enthusiastic about it, that willingness to improve, to get better, to keep pushing each other, to look for higher ceilings. What I think everybody needs is motivating, is inspiring, Every day is something new to look at and we have created that culture and I want to keep going.

on keeping himself motivated:

Just looking around and the people that I work with every single day. They are ready, they are so willing to work and they are ruthless about the vision that we have and what we want to achieve. Then obviously the players; the energy that they come in with every day. Their ability to always put a smile on my face regardless of what happens, they make me enjoy my job and that’s the biggest motivation.

on the Wolves test:

It’s really tough, we always have a big challenge to beat them. Gary [O’Neill] and his staff have done exceptional work and it’s a really competitive match. They are really tricky to attack, they are very tricky to contain, they create chances in various ways. We need to be at our best and if we do that we have a good chance to win the game.

on the hunger of our players:

On the last day [of the season], we had a gathering together with all the club players and they were coming to me and saying: ‘we are going to do it next year, we are going to be better, we want more.’ And when you see that you accept they’re the ones driving that ambition so that’s always possible.

on the connection between players and our supporters:

We need to make another step and this season has to be better than last season. From day one, if we can create that then we have to give them a lot of reasons to feel that way and hopefully the team will do that. I am sure they’re going to respond. It was unbelievable the other day against Lyon already so I expect a big one tomorrow again.

on his feelings ahead of a new title challenge:

Again, very excited! It’s like you’re trying to climb the highest mountain. It’s the most difficult league in the world and you feel surrounded by a lot of people who have the same ambition every single day to achieve it. We’re certainly going to try.

on the players keeping themselves fit:

Last season it was a big issue for us, we were really short on numbers. Thank God that we had Ben, William and Gabi fully fit almost the whole season. But you cannot replicate that two seasons in a row; there are more demands, more games.

on if the boss is putting pressure on himself to win the title:

For me, it’s the enthusiasm to do better, and when certain tasks are already done, the last one is winning! We know that so we’re focusing on the process of what we need to do, to give ourselves the best chance to achieve it and that’s the demands we put on ourselves every single day.

on being better than last year:

For me, it’s far from perfection and this team still has some levels to reach. You need a reason to believe that, because I’ve seen it already every day in the way they train and the way they play, there’s still room for improvement.

on if we have to dip into the market to buy a striker:

We have great strikers already; we have a great attacking line.

on if Ben White will be back in the England squad:

That’s a question for the England manager and Ben to discuss. If that’s what Ben White wants, I just want to see him happy.  

on PGMOL’s rule changes around set pieces:

We will try all the time within the rules that the Premier League puts in to prepare in the best possible way and at the same time try to be efficient.

on Kieran Tierney’s injury and transfer speculation:

He needs to focus on recovering in the best possible way, it’s been a tough time for him again with the last injury. We have to try to support him and make sure he gets back fit. 

on players returning earlier from the Euros compared to other clubs:

I think we all have different plans throughout the season, when we give days off, the kind of training sessions we do. We believe it was the right thing to do and it was an opinion we shared with the players, to try to find the right schedule for all of them. With [William Saliba] it was a bit different because of the amount of games played.

on additional options this season like Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly:

Yes for sure, and as well we have Jurrien Timber, who we lost for 11 months so that’s another one. Myles has played a lot of minutes, Ethan and Ayden as well in pre-season. That gave them a platform to understand how good they are and the options that we have in the squad right now. They are certainly going to be training with us.

on any changes to how the young players hold themselves within the group:

What I love the most is their attitudes, their personalities and the way they compete in training. We threw them into very difficult situations and they responded. It was a great test to see where they are, and I think they’re in a really good place.

on getting the most out of all of our players:

The main focus for me and the coaching staff is to improve our players and focus on those fine margins in everything that we do to give them the best possibility to find the level that they probably hadn’t even dreamed about. That’s what we have to do, and then we have to add something if we don’t have it in our team or in our academy. Then obviously we have to recruit.

on how quickly the players turned to this season after the final day:

It was the same evening. Everyone was talking about the same thing, how they weren’t going to stop there and how they wanted much more. We know the things that we can do to get better.

on using pain as motivation:

There are moments when you have to accept that somebody else has been better, that’s sport. We want to get to where they are at the moment and that’s really inspiring.

on the support for the upcoming season (Layth's question)

It was great in the US and in the stadiums there was huge support so that tells you what these players have been able to transmit from the supporters. We’ve had the last two games at home against Leverkusen and Lyon and it was amazing, so I expect another level again. That’s going to be a huge boost for the team.

on gaining confidence from our recent pre-season results:

We now just have to go game-by-game. We are competing for points in the most difficult league and we have to prove that we are better than last year.