Mikel Arteta is delighted to have signed a new contract with Arsenal.

Arteta was appointed in December 2019 and his new deal runs until the end of the 2024-25 campaign.

He said, "I'm really excited, grateful and really, really happy today.

"The club was really eager to do it as quickly as we could. Obviously they showed a lot of faith and belief in what we are doing, with the coaching staff, what the direction of the team, and they thought the best moment was to do it right now, to give a final push to the team, to give some clarity about what we have to do in the summer, in the future. It's a way of saying 'listen, from both ways we believe in what we are doing and we want to commit to this project together.'

"And this is the place I want to be, so it was a really simple decision for me."

On his relationship with the board, Arteta said: "Probably the way I would define it, it would be empathy, the same purpose and trust. Empathy because the moment I got to know Josh [Kroenke], from the first meeting I got a real sense that the energy was flowing. We were really clear and direct. He was showing the same ambition as I was. He could see the club at the same point and he wanted to take the club the way I wanted to do it.

"So everything that he's said, and that Stan has said when I've been together with both of them, they've always delivered. I think that's been a relationship that both ways has been exactly the same, so I'm extremely happy with them, with what they are doing, with their involvement, with the commitment they are showing and with the relationship that we have built together. With myself, with Edu, with Rich, with Tim Lewis, with Vinai.

"That is really, really important because that connection and that communication has to be there at all times because this is a moving thing and they are extremely important to it."