Mikel Arteta has asserted that Arsenal’s impending £60m acquisition of Eberechi Eze is not a knee-jerk reaction to Kai Havertz’s recent knee injury.

The Gunners’ manager confirmed Havertz will miss Saturday’s Premier League clash against Leeds at the Emirates, though the full extent of the Germany international’s layoff remains unclear.

“Obviously we were very active trying to look at the possibilities that could come,” Arteta stated. “We are not reacting to anything, we’ve been very prepared and understanding what we could do and we have decided this is the moment to do it.

“We are showing the ambition that we are here to win major trophies and to keep evolving and improving every single year and that comes with demands and those demands are clear.

“And we want to be in front in the league, not just chasing or reacting or being behind, but in front of it and every decision that we make in every area of the club is to achieve that.”

We’ve offered a couple of tips ahead of today’s game:

It didn’t take long for Arsenal fans to welcome Eberechi Eze into the fold. He quickly received a mural near the Emirates, although it has since been painted over after being defaced by Tottenham fans

Eberechi Eze’s move to Arsenal from Crystal Palace looks set to be completed in the next few days but this won’t be the first time the England international has had a spell at the north London club.

It emerged on Wednesday evening that Arsenal had managed to hijack Eze’s move to their bitter rivals Tottenham and instead bring him to the Emirates Stadium in a deal worth £60m and £7.5m in add-ons.

Eze has made no secret of being a boyhood Arsenal fan and joined the club’s academy at the age of eight. However, he was released when he was just 13 and has previously admitted, in an exclusive interview with The Independent, just how much that hurt.

Daniel Farke vowed Leeds “won’t sell our DNA” at the Emirates Stadium today against Premier League title challengers Arsenal.

The Gunners are huge favourites to notch their second win of the season in their opening home game after grinding out a 1-0 triumph last week at Old Trafford, while Leeds marked their top-flight return with victory on Monday over Everton.

Farke’s side were the top-ranked team for goals scored (95), touches in the opposition box, possession and high turnovers en route to the Championship title last season.

And despite the gulf between the Premier League and the second tier, the German has been tweaking, rather than ripping up, his blueprint.

Mikel Arteta admitted he is walking around with a huge smile on his face after assembling what he now believes is the best squad of his Arsenal reign.

Eberechi Eze’s imminent £60m arrival from Crystal Palace will take Arsenal’s spending spree to £250m amid a summer of transformation at the Emirates.

When asked if he is now armed with the most complete squad of his near seven-year tenure, Arteta replied: “In terms of numbers and quality, yes for sure. When you shake the tree and bring in more players there are always things that can happen.

“The spirit of that is to be more competitive, to be better and learn from the past, and with the squad we had last year we made life very, very difficult for ourselves if you look at the size and depth of other squads and the resources they had.

“So, we all have big smiles on our faces with the understanding that we have done really well, but the market is not closed and we have to stay very alert because there are a lot of things that can happen still. But so far, so good.”

Just hours before Arsenal clinched a deal for Eberechi Eze, in an even crueller twist, Tottenham Hotspur finally put in the offer they felt would be acceptable to Crystal Palace. There had been a verbal agreement. Spurs just never got a proper answer. The reason soon became clear.

After days of difficult and painstaking negotiations between Spurs chairman Daniel Levy and Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish, Arsenal had appeared to steal in within a matter of mere hours. That has already seen this move cast as the mother of all transfer hijackings, especially as it appears to be another North London derby victory.

Except, it wasn’t really a hijacking at all. The Independent can now reveal that Arsenal had actually struck the principles of an agreement with Palace as early as the morning of Sunday 10 August. They managed to keep it extraordinarily quiet, as illustrated by how it was only after Wednesday evening’s shock revelation that multiple sources were willing to talk about it.

Read Miguel Delaney’s full insight into how the drama of the Eze transfer went down:

Meanwhile, Leeds also secured a 1-0 win – over Everton at Elland Road. Here’s what our Senior Football Correspondent Richard Jolly had to say:

Five years ago, Leeds marked their return to the Premier League with a helter-skelter affair against opposition from Merseyside. Marcelo Bielsa’s side lost 4-3 to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in a classic. In 2025, there was a superficial similarity in the fixture list, none whatsoever in the game but Leeds could savour an outcome they preferred. Everton were beaten 1-0 and, for the second time in the opening round of games, a promoted club tasted victory.

Daniel Farke’s Leeds will never have the romance of Bielsa’s but a prosaic win qualified as a “really magic night” for a manager who entered his 50th Premier League game with just six wins to his name but who could claim the meagre resources at Norwich accounted for that record.

Leeds are trying to be streetwise in their attempts to stay up, embarking on a recruitment drive where the average height of their arrivals is 6ft 2in, and there was logic to Farke’s analysis. “A good start is always crucial,” he said. “The first win out of the way, the first clean sheet.”

So how did the teams get on in their opening Premier League matches?

Bukayo Saka admitted Arsenal were a long way from their best but they still snatched a 1-0 win away to Manchester United as Riccardo Calafiori got the only goal in the 13th minute when he pounced on an error from United’s stand-in goalkeeper Altay Bayindir.

But Arsenal were otherwise second best at Old Trafford, sloppy in possession against a United side who impressed with their energy and purpose, even if they ultimately could not find an end product.

“It was not a great performance,” Saka said. “We are happy with the three points, to come away from Old Trafford with a win.

“We were not up to our usual standards, the basics, sloppy giveaways. Our decision making was not great and that cost us and gave United a lot of momentum. We did not get punished for it but we cannot do it every game.”

The match at the Emirates will kick-off at 5.30pm BST this afternoon.

Viewers in the United Kingdom can watch the match live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League. A live stream will be available via Sky Go or NOW.