Mikel Arteta says he has yet to decide where Kai Havertz will line up for Arsenal this season while he has confirmed that Martin Odegaard is struggling with an injury issue.
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The Gunners kicked off their pre-season campaign with a 1-1 draw against Nurnberg in Germany, with Bukayo Saka opening the scoring after just seven minutes before the north Londoners were pegged back by a rather calamitous goal from Kanji Okunuki in the second half.
Havertz was introduced at half-time and had a somewhat underwhelming debut, appearing to be deployed in the advanced midfield role vacated by Granit Xhaka.
Arteta notably referenced his £65million signing as a midfielder when he was unveiled, despite the German playing most of last season as a false nine for Chelsea, and the Arsenal boss says his role in the side is still yet to be determined.
Asked where he sees Havertz playing following his outing against Nurnberg, Arteta replied: ‘We will see. We have to see how he adapts and get to know each other and build relationships.
‘Football is about that and time will tell where he sees best.’
Martin Odegaard was named in the starting XI for Wednesday’s match but pulled out shortly before kick-off after suffering a problem in the warm-up, with Fabio Vieira replacing him in the line-up.
Asked about the injury, Arteta replied: ‘He and Leo [Trossard] are struggling and we had other players with issues picked up in the week so we have to be cautious.
‘It’s pre-season and some of them have only had two or three training sessions so we’ll take it step by step.’
Reacting to the performance against Nurnberg more generally, and whether he got what he wanted from the game, Arteta continued: ‘A lot of things that I saw in the first half and especially as a few of the boys have only had three training sessions so just to give them minutes and exposure to understand and start connecting with each other again.
‘I’ve seen some really good things despite the amount of changes we made and that is why the game declined, especially in quality and in control but we knew that was going to happen.
‘The way we played in the first half was really good and I think we could have scored more goals, even in the second half we had two big, big chances to score and we didn’t. It’s part of football, and mistakes are part of the sport.’
On potential transfer activity, Arteta added: ‘At the moment we are working with the group of players that is here. We have nothing to announce yet, and when it is done you will be the first to know.’
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