Dani Ceballos remains something of an enigma for Arsenal.

Still at the club on loan from Real Madrid, he has yet to really make the impact one would expect from such a talented midfield player.

This season, he has made just 10 starts in the Premier League, coming off the bench six times, and it appears that manager Mikel Arteta really doesn’t know how to get the best out of him.

Indeed, when the Gunners went on a run of seven games without a win, Ceballos played a part in all of them; when he was benched against Chelsea, the Gunners got back to winning ways.

And it now appears that he has set his sights on returning to Spain when his loan spell is over instead of looking to earn a stay in north London.

Sport Witness relay the quotes, which have come from an interview with EFE printed in Marca, and he has hinted strongly that he intends to fight for his spot at the Bernabeu.

He said: “They (Real) don’t have to tell me anything.

“It would be to have a chat with the coach and the coaching staff at the time and know that I will have equal opportunities with the rest of the players.

“From then on, you have to earn it on the pitch. I can tell you about what happened to me at Madrid.”

Ceballos made a total of 56 appearances for Real following his arrival in 2017.

GIVEMESPORT’S Harry Sherlock says…

This won’t be a great loss for Arsenal.

While he is not a box-to-box presence, he has scored just twice and laid on a mere three assists in his time at the club, and it feels as though he is not the game-changing presence the club thought he would be when he arrived.

Per WhoScored, he averages 1.1 key passes per game, but he also averages 50.8 passes. One has to think that the majority of them are harmless to the opposition in that case.

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Letting him go back to Real so the Gunners can freshen up their midfield would be a good thing, and allow Arteta to continue shaping the squad in his image.

Ceballos hasn’t made the required impact to stick around.