Dani Ceballos has used the Premier League winter break to return to Spain for a few days before joining up with Arsenal on their training camp.
Moving to the Gunners on loan for the season from Real Madrid, the midfielder has had a difficult time. It was a move he was convinced about, largely down to Unai Emery, but an injury then scuppered things and he had to sit in the stands and watch as the manager’s time with the club came to an end.
Given that Ceballos was in Spain, Marca took the opportunity to speak to him, and he’s on the front page of Wednesday’s edition of the newspaper.
Inevitably asked about the change in manager from Emery to Mikel Arteta, the Spaniard explained: “I was messed up because I had never been injured and unfortunately I was injured in a situation where the team began to fade a bit. I left when we were fifth-sixth, three-four points away from the goal of entering the Champions League.
“I watched the Arsenal games and saw that it was costing us, that we were entering a dynamic where it was difficult to get the points. I am helpless and angry that I did not help the manager return everything he had done for me.”
Ceballos felt especially bad because Emery had put such effort into his signing last summer: “Unai was key for me to be at Arsenal. I go out to play at a club like Arsenal because, apart from being a giant, Unai comes practically to my house, to tell me that he loved my football, that he has liked me since Betis… A coach is key to getting your maximum performance. Unai told me that I would be important with him, and I had no doubt of going there.”
Ceballos at least partly blames himself for how it all happened in the first place: “It was in Guimarares, in Portugal, I think that it was due to an excess of matches. I had 17 games in two months, I was the only player who had played all those games. At that time I spoke with Unai and told him that in all competitions, as long as I could and my body allowed it, I wanted to play it all. Sometimes you have to learn from mistakes. It cost me an injury, but you learn everything.”
After January talk of an early Arsenal exit, Ceballos dismissed that, insisting he’s concentrating on where he is. He can’t say much differently now, with the window being closed, but it’s clear there’s now an eye to the future, and hope after the injury.
Regardless of how he felt about Emery, the 23 year old still had time to speak fondly of Arteta, and how he’s optimistic for the rest of the season: “Mikel is going to be a great coach. He has learned from Pep, he has a game philosophy with which I think fits perfectly, in what he asks for his team.
“Yes, it is true that he has arrived in a difficult situation for the club but mentally he is a coach that I think is what Arsenal needs right now. Since I returned I have been working with him just two weeks and now is when I have to show him that I am fit to play in Arsenal. After the break I will be important.”
Ceballos has to be important, if he’s to have any chance of keeping his Euro 2020 dream alive.
