Mikel Arteta has revealed more details about his coronavirus diagnosis and confirmed he’s now recovered from the illness.
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The Spaniard tested positive on Wednesday 11 March, six days after contact with Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis, who admitted he’d also been ‘visited’ by the virus.
The Premier League agreed to the immediate postponement of the Gunners trip to Manchester City, Arsenal’s players went into self-isolation and within a matter of days, the entire football calendar was put on hold.
As things stand there will be no live football at any level in the UK for at least another five weeks and Arsenal today confirmed that players would not be returning to training while the government urges people to minimise contact with others.
“I’m very well now, I feel that I have recovered,” the 37-year-old told Spanish TV station La Sexta via webcam.
“It took me three or four days to start feeling much better and with more energy, to leave the symptoms behind and now, the truth is that I feel very well.”
Reflecting on how the situation played out. He added: “Everything happened very fast. On [the] Tuesday afternoon I was feeling so-so and I went to see the doctor but he wasn’t there.
“I got a call from the board of directors after training while I was in my car and they told me that the president of Olympiacos [Evangelos Marinakis] had tested positive and everyone that had been in contact was at risk.
“I went on to tell them that I wasn’t feeling well and that we had a situation because we had lots of players that had been in contact with them [Olympiacos]. We had a game against Manchester City the next day and obviously we couldn’t put lots of people at risk without saying anything.
“I had the test done last Wednesday and I was diagnosed on Friday, when we had to communicate it to the Premier League that I had tested positive.
“Obviously all those that had been in contact with me had to go into quarantine, and consequently, games had to be suspended.”
