Such praise underlines why Arsenal have invested more than £50million to sign Zubimendi from Real Sociedad. With Jorginho and Thomas Partey departing, the club are overhauling the base of their midfield and they first started looking for a world-class No6 a year ago.

At half-time of last year’s European Championship final against England, Spain manager Luis de la Fuente had a simple message for his players. “Let’s be ourselves,” he told his team, in a speech filmed by Amazon’s documentary-makers.

Mikel Arteta has given his thoughts on the signing of Martin Zubimendi following his big-money move to the club. He and Andrea Berta were both speaking in the wake of the announcement that he had made the move to north London.