Arsenal goalkeeper Matt Turner has opened up about his difficult start to life at his new club, including being shoved by Mikel Arteta after making a mistake in training.
The American international joined Arsenal in the summer from MLS side New England Revolution, but has only made one appearance for the club, in the Europa League against FC Zurich.
Turner, 28, has a wealth of experience and has represented his country on 18 occasions, but the demands of Arteta’s playing style, particularly the requirement for his goalkeeper to play out from the back, are proving difficult for him to adjust to.
‘We were playing a small possession game and it was really, really tight,’ Turner said while on USMNT duty, via MLS.
‘I tried to make a pass and I gave the ball away. I sort of visually got frustrated and upset and he 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”.
‘I think that really set the tone for my mentality within the club and just to keep going no matter what. If you fail, that’s alright.
‘What matters is how you react and not about the failure in itself. That was a really nice moment.’
Turner insists he is on board with Arteta’s management style and is confident he will improve significantly under his tutelage, despite the fact that the Spaniard’s various unconventional motivational techniques were featured in the recent Amazon All or Nothing documentary.
‘My game has come a long way since I began at Arsenal,’ Turner said. ‘Just the speed and the intensity of everything, every single day.
‘Mikel [Arteta] doesn’t accept anything except full-gas at training sessions, so you have to bring it every single day, or else you get found out pretty quickly out there on the pitch.
‘For me, it’s the consistency that I have to bring every day in training, being ready for moments where I’m going to be able to get to play and overall just the speed, technical execution of things, making saves against world-class players every day in training, sometimes getting found out by world-class players in training. But all the while learning.’
Turner will most likely continue to serve as Aaron Ramsdale’s understudy, but with more European and domestic cup fixtures on the horizon, he is confident he will get enough game time before the World Cup in Qatar in November.
Playing in the Europa League was a nice box to tick and I felt like after the first five minutes I sort of settled into the game and I felt really, really good about how I did,’ Turner said.
‘[Now I’ll] continue moving forward and focus on these two games and then from there, we have 13 games between the end of this break and the World Cup. Busy times ahead.’
