Arteta demands ‘desire and ambition’ for title defence and says Lewis-Skelly will stay

Mikel Arteta has called on Arsenal to prove they have the desire to defend their Premier League title on the eve of the new season. He also reiterated that Myles Lewis-Skelly will not be leaving in this transfer window. Arsenal face Coventry in their opening match on Friday night as they attempt to retain the championship for the first time since the 1930s. Arsenal have won 17 of their past 18 matches against promoted teams and have not been beaten at the Emirates Stadium by one since November 2010 – a run of 45 matches. While Arsenal are heavy favourites to start with a comfortable victory, especially after their impressive win over Manchester City in the Community Shield on Sunday, Arteta believes they must adapt to a different challenge this time. “We need to take this organically because it’s going to be a long marathon,” he said. “What we need to show is that desire and ambition to be better than we were last season, a month ago, or a week ago when we played Man City. We have the ability to improve, to evolve, and that’s what I sense and I feel around the club and especially around the players.” Asked whether Arsenal begin the season with a target on their backs, he said: “Today, no, because we start from scratch and we’re going to have to prove we have the level to go back to that position again. “But that happened in the last three seasons – at some point we were first, at some point we were chasing it, and you never know what’s better. “You give me the choice, I want to be first, I want to be hunted, and I want to be in control of our future, rather than depending on somebody else.” It is understood Myles Lewis-Skelly was offered to Manchester United and Chelsea as Arsenal attempt to raise funds after the £75m purchase of Bruno Guimarães from Newcastle. The 19-year-old academy graduate was outstanding in midfield against City in Cardiff, having also started in that position in the Champions League final last season against Paris Saint-Germain, and Arteta is “100%” confident he will remain at Arsenal. “The players that have been raised in our system, and they feel that love and that connection with the club, bring something else, there’s no question about that,” he said. “We need to look after them in a really special way because they bring value that is very difficult to find. That’s why, when we can, we want to protect those assets as much as possible, develop them and make them extremely important for the club.” Arteta said Martín Zubimendi remains an integral part of his squad and he expects the midfielder to remain despite reported interest from Real Madrid. Zubimendi was outstanding for most of last season before losing his place to Lewis-Skelly, but Arteta said he has reassured the Spain international that he still has a big role to play at the club “I had various conversations with him. First of all, for him to understand my decisions, he knew perfectly where they were coming from and he’s an extremely honest and straight guy. He’s so demanding of himself that sometimes it can be too much. “But he knows that and he knew that we were going to add and increase the quality of the squad. Because it has to happen in every position and we cannot not do what we did. “When he got to the last stage of his season, he already played 55 games. We cannot have that again at this level. He recognises that. Now it’s going to be: ‘OK, how I’m going to now raise the level to be able to do what I did last year. But for 11 months.’”