Xavi Simons to Arsenal transfer truth revealed as Rio Ferdinand makes bold Jude Bellingham claim

Mikel Arteta has a few days on the training pitches at London Colney to conjure up a plan which sees Arsenal return to winning ways. The Gunners will lock horns with Newcastle United at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon as either side hopes to climb the Premier League table.

Aside from their defeat to Porto in the Champions League on Wednesday evening, Arsenal have been enjoying a brilliant vein of form. Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard have been standout performers, but Arteta will need all of his players to be switched on as the title race builds a head of steam.

In other news, the summer transfer window may be shut but Ivan Toney continues to be heavily linked with an exit from Brentford. With that being said, football.london has taken a look at some of the biggest Arsenal stories on Thursday, February 22.

Speaking to reporters following Arsenal's defeat to Porto in the Champions League round of 16 first-leg, Arteta offered his verdict on a disappointing evening. The Gunners boss said: «Obviously I am very disappointed the way we gave the game away at the end. Not managing that situation well enough.

»You get punished in the Champions League. If you cannot win it, you don’t lose it. We really dominated the game but we lacked purpose, especially in the first half. You need to have much more aggression, you need to break lines, to play forward and generate much more threat on that backline.

«In the second half there were much better things and we generated a lot of situations, without really creating much from it. We will learn from it. Now it is clear, it is half-time. If you want to be in the quarter-finals you have to beat your opponent and that will be the purpose and the plan, with all our supporters together.»