Leandro Trossard said the Arsenal hierarchy went out of their way to make it clear that they wanted him after the Mykhailo Mudryk saga.

The Gunners had initially looked to sign Ukrainian winger Mudryk in the winter transfer window of 2023, but had the move hijacked by London rivals Chelsea for £88.5million.

They instead turned to the Belgian, who signed from Brighton in January last year for £27million, and has hit the ground running ever since.

Meanwhile Mudryk has endured a torrid time at the Blues, scoring just five league goals last season and struggling to make the impact that was expected.

The 29-year-old said: ‘I didn’t think about what was going on before me.

‘They (Arsenal) made it very clear to me that they wanted me after the thing with Mudryk and yeah, I was happy to join.

‘I had a good chat with Mikel. He gave me the plan about how it would go, and it just started to click straight away.

‘Not just with my performances on the pitch but off the pitch as well, I think there’s a really good vibe. Players are amazing off the pitch, how they welcome you, so it came straight away.’

The Gunners were pipped to the title for a second consecutive time, taking the race to the final day in May on the most recent occasion.

Trossard pinpoints the month of December, where the north London club lost to Fulham, Aston Villa and West Ham, as the crucial period where the league was lost.

He said: ‘I think we had a patch in December where we had a couple of games we didn’t win.

‘There we didn’t have the same performances in terms of winning games. We need to just be consistent for the whole season.

‘Every game is a tough one because every team is developing and every squad is developing in the league.

‘So I think it’s getting harder and harder. But the end goal is winning trophies. It’s up to us, we need to improve on the things that we didn’t do last season and get those nine, 10 or 12 points more.’

Initially, Trossard occupied the bench for much of the period before winter. But he went on to usurp regular starter Gabriel Martinelli, who is an Arsenal favourite, to make the position his own of late.

It’s a reflection of how cut-throat the competition is to make Arteta’s starting XI.

‘The competition in the team is at a high level,’ he said.

‘Everyone needs to be at their best to play — we’ve seen that over the past years. The manager makes decisions based on how hard you work in training and what you do in games.

‘It’s good that we push each other in every position. That’s how you can win things.’

Though it does help when you have a united squad, which Arsenal do — aided by card games.

He added: ‘I think that’s where it starts. If you are really connected off the pitch, you have a good squad and you’re doing things together, it helps on the pitch as well if you like each other.

‘Obviously you will not have the same connection with all 25 players, but we do a lot of stuff together. On the coach, or on away trips, we play games.

‘Sometimes it’s 10-15 players together and you can see that we all enjoy to be with each other.

‘We play card games and a game called wolf! It helps the team sometimes.’