Arteta Tips Guimarães to Bring Fresh Energy to Arsenal

Mikel Arteta is confident new signing Bruno Guimarães will bring a new dimension to Premier League champions Arsenal and help drive the club to greater success.

The Brazilian midfielder was presented to Arsenal fans before the Gunners’ 3-2 loss to Borussia Dortmund in the Emirates Cup on Sunday after his £75m transfer from Newcastle United.

The 28-year-old has put pen to paper on a four-year contract, adding further quality and experience to an already strong Arsenal midfield that includes Declan Rice, Martin Ødegaard, Mikel Merino, Martín Zubimendi and Eberechi Eze.

Arteta believes Guimarães’ competitive character, leadership and technical ability will have a positive effect on the squad.

“You can see the instant reaction,” Arteta said on the club website. “I think he calls himself a warrior. I think he is a warrior with a tremendous quality too, intuition, leadership and charisma that is going to help us.

“You know it’s going to light a fire under the team. “I think he’s going to push everybody inside the team as well and that’s the type of player that we need.”

Arsenal ended last season by ending a 22-year wait to win the Premier League title after finishing as runners-up in the previous three campaigns. They also reached the final of the Champions League and Carabao Cup.

Arsenal’s last big pre-season test ended in defeat against Dortmund and Guimarães was watching from the sidelines.

Joane Gadou’s goal extended Germany’s lead after Samuele Inácio and Konstantinos Karetsas had given the home team a 2-0 advantage. Arsenal pulled one back thru Ethan Nwaneri but Viktor Gyökeres netted a penalty.

Arsenal then triumphed 5-4 in a prearranged penalty shoot-out.

Arteta said he was disappointed with the loss but found some positives from the display, especially going forward.

“It is disappointing that we lost the game,” said the Arsenal boss.

“I think there were some poor moments where we were not recognizable, especially in set pieces and defending actions and timings that we are normally very efficient in.

“But there were also some very, very positive attacking combinations and big chances that some of them didn’t end in anything because of the final pass, although they were completely open.

In general I’m disappointed because you always want to win the games, no matter the context, and today we haven’t been able to do so.

Arsenal will continue their preparations for the new season with a clash against Manchester City in the Community Shield on August 16 before kicking off their Premier League title defense at home to Coventry City on August 21.