“I don’t like seeing that”: £8m man lifts lid on Arsenal training incident at London Colney

Follow us on Google Discover

Matt Turner has been speaking about his start to life at Arsenal, where he made an interesting revelation involving himself and Mikel Arteta.

What’s the story?

Well, the 28-year-old only arrived at the Emirates Stadium in June from New England Revolution, in a deal worth £7.5m including add-ons.

However, Turner has already experienced the intense nature of Arteta, as the pair were involved in a constructive confrontation during a training session at London Colney.

As quoted by Major League Soccer, the American said: “We were playing a small possession game and it was really, really tight… I tried to make a pass and I gave the ball away. I sort of visually got frustrated and upset and Arteta just came up to me and shoved me.

“He was basically like, ‘I don’t want to see that. I don’t like seeing that reaction. I want to see you pick yourself up and keep going.’”

As we all saw in Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary, the Spaniard certainly isn’t afraid to get in the faces of his players if he feels they need to be told something.

Turner is yet to make his Premier League debut, although Arteta did hand the United States international his competitive debut in the 2-1 Europa League win over FC Zurich.

However, unless he improves his response to mistakes make at London Colney, we doubt he’ll be taking the place of Aaron Ramsdale anytime soon.

Arsenal must keep working with Matt Turner

It is hard to make a judgement on Turner given the fact he has only made one appearance for Arsenal, although on the basis of that outing – and his struggles in training – Arteta must work hard to improve him.

The American looked shaky in his debut against FC Zurich, with Kevin Campbell describing his performance as “flappy at times” – however, it was his first outing, so patience is needed.

Bernd Leno was almost the ideal No.2 for Arsenal given his proven quality, although the Germany international is too good to be sitting on the bench.

Now, Arteta needs to make sure he coaches Turner up to the required standard – at the moment, if Ramsdale suffers a serious injury, Arsenal’s style of play will be difficult to maintain.