David Luiz’s camp are denying reports of a fallout between the player and Mikel Arteta, insisting they have a good relationship.

In the wake of Arsenal’s 10-man defeat to Burnley on Sunday, Football.London ran a story with a number of worrying claims about the current atmosphere within the squad.

One of these claims was that Mikel Arteta’s relationship with David Luiz has soured over the past few weeks, with neither party speaking directly to the other anymore. However, Luiz’s camp have spoken out to deny this.

In an amendment to the Football.London article, they write that a representative of Luiz got in touch with the following statement:

“David Luiz strongly denies this story about him and Arteta and insists he has a good relationship with Arteta and wishes nothing but success.”

Unfortunately, Arsenal players and their representatives haven’t proven themselves to be particularly reliable in recent months.

For example, Dani Ceballos publicly labelled a David Ornstein story about a clash with Luiz as “fake”, but subsequent quotes from Arteta about trying to catch the leaker suggested it was real. So it’s hard to know which side we can trust at the moment.

Either way, it’s never good news when you’re having to deal with these sorts of stories. It always means things are going badly on the pitch, which they certainly are.

No one cares if Luiz and Arteta are getting on if the team is top of the league. But they’re 15th, so these headlines are expected.