Recent Arsenal signing Matt Turner has shone light on how a tough start to life at Arsenal initiated him into the realities of the Premier League.
The Gunners’ current deputy and USMNT goalkeeper explained how Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta berated him for showing a negative reaction to an error in a passing drill in training.
‘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.’
That moment, along with the standards driven by the Arsenal manager, have given Turner the confidence to perpetually improve since arriving in North London.
‘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 debuted for Arsenal earlier this month in the Gunners’ 2-1 win over FC Zurich in the Europa League.
‘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.’
The 28-year-old completed a move to the Gunners in June after a $10million transfer fee was agreed between the Premier League giants and MLS side, New England Revolution.