Every word Mikel Arteta said on Mosquera, Gyokeres hint, Martinelli, Gabriel and Timber fitness

Mikel Arteta has just finished his press conference ahead of Arsenal's second pre-season friendly of the summer in Singapore. Fresh from beating AC Milan 1-0 on Wednesday evening courtesy of Bukayo Saka's strike, the Gunners take on Newcastle United at the National Stadium on Sunday.

The game could potentially see Cristhian Mosquera make his Arsenal debut after completing his transfer from Valencia. During his time with the media, Arteta spoke about the defender and why the club made a move for him to strengthen their backline.

The Spaniard also discussed the latest on the injury front, Viktor Gyokeres' upcoming move to the club, summer transfers and so much more. Arteta was also joined by summer signing Christian Norgaard as he spoke to the assembled media for the first time since swapping Brentford for Arsenal.

You can read every word Arteta had to say in his pre-match press conference below:

Cristhian Mosquera is here after flying out, what is the thinking here? Is it about getting him integrated as soon as possible?

Exactly that. Very happy to have him, he's a player we have monitored for a long, long time. He has decided to join us and we are very happy to have him already with us.

Can we conclude from that if you were to make another signing, maybe a striker, would the same apply?

Yes for sure. Obviously once we have finalised everything with a player we want to integrate him with the team as quickly as possible. With Noni it was impossible because he needed some time. I think he's going to take a shorter vacation than he deserves because he wants to joins us straightaway, as soon as we're back.

I think immediately is better so they can start to join the team, get to know each other and get the ideas we want to put in their minds.

We're hearing Viktor Gyokeres can join in the next 48 hours, can you give us any light on that?

You know I cannot talk about a player who is not ours yet. Whatever happens in the next few hours I'm sure the club will make a statement about it.

What's the latest on the injury front? Any update on Gabriel and Jurrien Timber since Wednesday?

Gabby felt a little niggle in training and we didn't want to any risk and hopefully in the next week or so he will be able to train and play again.

Jurrien is getting very close. He's almost ticked every box after the surgery and the period of rehab he needed. I think in the next few days he is going to start joining the team again.

Are you surprised by what other clubs are doing in the market?

Well as a competition you saw straightway before the Club World Cup Man City what they did straightaway, you see Chelsea what they've done, Man Utd, Spurs and of course Liverpool. You see every club is very, very active. Everyone wants to get better and increase the quality and depth of the squad. It is no different with us.

What are your plans with Martinelli?

With all our front players I think they are very dependent on the environment we create around them. And to create and open the spaces so we can expose them. We always want better and more from every single player.

I think Gabi has performed very well and very consistently in the last three or four seasons. Last year as well he had the bad injury that he picked up and he missed a lot of games but I’m very happy with what he is doing with us.

Striker position - how do you pick them?

The same as the other. At the end it is about impact and performance. There is a state of moment in every player how they are feeling, how their emotional state is, how their confidence is and then as well the connections you can generate in the team.

And who links better with who in what we want to achieve in that game and against the opponent that behaves in a particular way. That decision relates to that. Once someone is in the right moment and pushing the door full of confidence, for sure the manager is not going to stop them playing.

What does Cristhian Mosquera bring?

Again, raise the level, raise the competition, and last season again we learned with the depth we had in the backline, the numbers in the squad, it wasn’t enough, and Cristhian is going to help us a lot in that. He has different qualities than what we had in the backline.

He’s going to add a huge amount of hunger because he’s so ready to come here and contribute to the team. We have to give him a little bit of time to pick up the ideas and to adapt here but he’s got great qualities to make us better.

Mikel, what’s the target for this season?

Well “pressure” I think is a great word, and I think that means that there is belief in our ability to achieve what we want to achieve. We’ve been very, very close the last three seasons, and there’s more things that are going to decide whether we achieve that or not, but what we have to make sure is that we don’t lose sight of what we have to do daily, to get to the levels that we want, to set the demands that we want within the squad, because that’s the most important one — the internal demands have to be always exceeding any external demand, and that’s what we are trying to achieve every single day.