Author: isport

Mikel Arteta has praised the Manchester City’s midfielder Yaya Toure and has said that there are very few midfielders in the world who are better than Toure. Arteta has given this statement ahead of Arsenal’s match against Manchester City.

The Gunners will take on Manchester City on Sunday at the Etihad Stadium. Despite the exit of some key players, Arsenal’s performance has been quite decent in the current season so far. Arsene Wenger’s team hasn’t got defeated in any of the matches that the team has played in the ongoing season.

The team has played 5 matches in the current season out of which four were the Premier League matches, while, one was the Champions League match. The team has won three out of these five matches. The remaining two ended in a draw. This is not a bad performance by a team which was hugely hampered by the exit of two of its last season heroes.

On the other hand, Manchester City has also performed decently in the current season. The team has played 6 matches so far and won three of them. The team has lost one, while, the rest two finished in the form of a draw. City lost its most recent match against Real Madrid by a close margin of 3-2.

Arteta admitted that it would be pretty tough to compete against Manchester City on its home ground, but, at the same time, he also said that Arsenal is a good enough team to give the defending Champions a run for their money.

The Spanish midfielder said, “Manchester City is a quality squad and it’s hard to find a weak link in their team. They have got all bases covered. They are also going to play on their home ground. So, that’s an additional advantage.”
“We have also performed quite well till now and it is going to a very interesting match. I am looking forward to it and hopefully, we would manage to gather all the three points in Sunday’s match.”

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Arsenal midfielder Mikel Arteta has said that Manchester city are definitely the favourites to win the title this season. Manchester city will be heading into the new season as the holders of the title.

They can retain the title due to the fact that they have a very strong squad according to the Spanish midfielder Mikel Arteta. The former Everton midfielder was signed from the Merseyside club for £ 10 million on the deadline day of the last summer transfer window. He has been a very influential signing for Arsenal, as he almost single-handedly helped them qualify for the Champions League this season by finishing in the third position.

Arsenal have an incredible record of not having lost the game when Mikel Arteta has played for them. Despite this incredible statistic, Mikel Arteta reckons that it will be Manchester city who are the favourites to win the title due to the strength of their squad. Arsenal have already made two important signings on a total cost of £ 25 million. However, they are likely to lose the star asset Robin van Persie for around £ 30 million, while the future of Theo Walcott is also a major doubt. These two players were highly influential for Arsenal last season.

“I think Manchester City would be the favourite team in next EPL season. If we could beat them in Beijing, it would be a bright start for a new season. Anyway, Arsenal also has a big chance to fight for the title, if we could show our abilities totally, we could overcome any rivals,” said the 30-year-old midfielder while on the pre-season tour of Asia. Manchester city recently defeated Arsenal 2-0 in a friendly match. Arsenal will be facing Sunderland on the opening day of the season, while Manchester city will be up against the newly promoted Southampton.

Barcelona’s Sergio Busquets has said that his side have to win the Copa Del Rey final. In a season where their only trophy so far has been in the World Club Cup it is a chance to save their season and to ensure Pep Guardiola’s final season and Barcelona career are not remembered as an entire flop.

Barca have failed in the defence of their La Liga and Champions League titles, finishing a distant second to Real Madrid in the league and losing to eventual winners Chelsea in the Champions League. Saturday sees Barca’s season come to a close with the Copa Del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao.

“We won our first final under Guardiola against Athletic, and he will leave with this exact same match, collecting many titles and installing a new philosophy”. Busquets shows that Barca are eager to ensure they get something out of a season that has been incredibly disappointing by their high standards.
Busquets and his Barcelona team mates are under no illusions that Guardiola’s tenure has been “one of the best periods in the history of the club.” And Busquets has described Guardiola as “a very special coach”.

He was also keen to stress that the change of coach is not going to affect their attitude. “We have a young team, with a lot of ambition” he told reporters, “the coach will leave and we must keep working, whether or not this coach is around.”
Busquets also spoke about his disappointment with the timing of the cup final, which falls 13 days after Barca’s league campaign came to an end against Real Betis.

“We would have preferred to play the match at an earlier date so that some of us could go on holiday, others could join their teams for Euro 2012 and others to prepare for their teams World Cup qualifiers.”

Mikel Arteta has said that even though Robin van Persie has been scoring all the goals for Arsenal, the club are not relying on this one player alone.

Mikel Arteta has done his bit in reviving the form for Arsenal in recent weeks. Arsenal struggled immediately after the loss of both Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri in a matter of a few months, but the arrival of Mikel Arteta seems to have worked their magic for Arsene Wenger’s men. Even though he has been struggling with a number of injury problems of late with Everton, Mikel Arteta has adapted brilliantly to Arsenal’s way of play.

As a result, the Spanish midfielder says that there’s no need for Arsenal to be relying only on Robin van Persie to help them win matches. Of course, Robin van Persie has been extremely brilliant for Arsenal in the last year, with the Dutchman just a few goals short of equalling the all-time record for number of goals scored in the calendar year set by Alan Shearer almost a decade ago.

Still, Mikel Arteta says that the club has a number of good players worthy of winning the game on their own. The interview comes after Arsenal’s huge victory over Wigan on Saturday, in which Robin van Persie scored his 32nd goal of the calendar year.

“For me, it was good the other players scored to take pressure off Robin. You cannot rely on Robin to score the goals all the time. He is on a terrific run and hopefully he can keep it up. He has so much natural quality. He is so good he makes it look as though he is not trying. He scores goals and makes them, he works hard, he is a superstar,” said the Spanish midfielder.