Ed Aarons

Manager calls on players and fans to embrace the chance of Champions League success despite recent defeats There was a dramatic pause when Mikel Arteta was asked what he wants from the Arsenal supporters against Sporting on Wednesday evening in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final. After his attempts to rouse them before the early kick-off against Bournemouth at the weekend by telling them to “bring your lunch” backfired spectacularly with a costly home defeat that ended with some fans booing the Premier League leaders off the pitch, this time the message was more considered.

‘We have to show on the pitch that we have the mindset’ Manager unsure when Saka will return from injury Mikel Arteta has admitted that Arsenal must prove to themselves that they have the right mindset to win the Premier League title but revealed there are major doubts over when Bukayo Saka will return from an achilles injury. The England forward will miss the second leg of Arsenal’s Champions League quarter-final against Sporting on Wednesday and looks set to still be sidelined for Sunday’s crucial Premier League showdown with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. Pep Guardiola said after City’s win over Chelsea last Sunday which cut Arsenal’s lead to six points that their recent resurgence is “about mindset, not tactics” as he attempts to win a seventh title in England.

Rival fans have raged after 11 of Mikel Arteta’s players withdrew from action with their countries before the season finale With the benefit of hindsight, Mikel Arteta’s response to a question before Arsenal’s victory over Everton last month about how the forthcoming international break might affect his squad was revealing. “We have really good communication with most of them,” Arteta replied when asked whether he was planning to speak to the various international managers that were expected to call up his players. “We’ll wait and see how everybody is and have those conversations and make the right decisions.” Considering that Arsenal were still pursuing an unprecedented quadruple at the time, was this the most nervous he had ever felt going into an international break? “It’s a period that I don’t enjoy a lot,” admitted Arteta. “Especially when we have 18, 19 players playing. And especially with what happened in our recent history with very important players. But that is part of the calendar and we have to accept that.”

The former England and Tottenham forward has had to be patient to get his chance but he ‘was never going to give up’ “It’s been a long time coming,” Jermain Defoe says on his first day as Woking’s manager. Dressed in a sharp grey suit that he admits he is wearing on the instructions of his mother, Sandra – “I know she’ll be watching this, and she’ll be like: ‘You’ve got to look smart!’” – the former England striker certainly looks the part as he fields questions in the unassuming surroundings of the Cardinal Bar at the Laithwaite Community Stadium. From missing the buzz of playing top‑level football since retiring in 2022 to acknowledging why it is crucial to “earn your stripes” as a manager, Defoe is brutally honest about the task that awaits him at the club that has never made it to the Football League in 139 years of existence. He even jokes that he turned down his former team Tottenham to take over at Woking.