Arsenal News: Club's Technical Director Sheds Light On Mikel Arteta's Future, January Signings

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta received a vote of confidence from the club’s technical director Edu Gaspar despite the team struggling in recent weeks.

The Spanish manager has come under intense scrutiny recently after Arsenal lost their fourth home game on the trot in the English Premier League.

The Gunners occupy the No. 15 seat on the league table with seven losses in their opening 12 games of the 2020-21 campaign.

Arsenal’s most recent loss came at the hands of Burnley on Sunday, which saw them fall 12 points behind league leaders Tottenham Hotspur.

Edu has backed Arteta to turn the team’s fortunes around and has called for patience from the fans.

He believes the former Manchester City assistant manager needs to be given the time to settle in and inculcate his ideas, which was hard when he joined due to the impact of Covid-19 on the game.

"If we're not talking about patience with Mikel it would be very unfair to him. Because what a year we have faced," Edu said, as quoted on Goal. "Pre-season challenges, three months without any football matches, a lot of things changing in the club. He started and stopped, and when he started to get an understanding of all the squad he stopped again.”

"He didn't get a sequence to know everyone properly. It would be really unfair to Mikel to say something about that because the year was so challenging for everyone but even more for Mikel, who'd just arrived at the club,” he added.

Edu also took the opportunity to address their supporters' hopes of a big signing in January by insisting that the solution to the current problem must come from within.

However, he did not rule it out completely that the club will most likely make major moves in the next transfer window.

“We don't talk about [player transfers] external," Edu said. "We are here to solve the problem. We have the team, we have the squad, we have the manager, we have the staff, everyone in the right place to change it.”

“People might start to ask: 'What are you going to do in the winter window?' Of course, we will try to do something but we have the responsibility to change it," he continued. "Don't wait for someone outside to come inside and be a magician because that's not going to happen.”

Meanwhile, one player who could be returning to the club this coming January is Lucas Torreira. Football365 reported that Atletico Madrid shows an inkling of terminating the 24-year-old’s season-long loan deal prematurely after the midfielder failed to impress Diego Simeone.

The Uruguayan has failed to start a single game since October with Simeone preferring to use Koke, Saul and Marcos Llorente as his midfield three.

It remains to be seen if Arteta will be ready to integrate Torreira back into the fold at Arsenal, especially after he went on record during summer that the player was not part of his plans.