He was at Manchester City but didn't play; now Pablo Mari is Arsenal's loan star

As Pablo Mari clocked up miles on the stationary bike in his back garden during 47 days of lockdown, he never let the situation get to him.

In part, that is because he knows there are more important things than football right now. It's also because the path of his career has never run straight. Seven weeks of quarantine, two weeks after making his Arsenal debut, was just another curve in the road.

The 26-year-old Spanish centre back, who is likely to be Mikel Arteta's first permanent signing but is on loan from Flamengo at the moment, left home at 13 to join Mallorca's academy. Later he signed for Manchester City but never met Pep Guardiola.

He then played on loan for three clubs in three seasons, before moving his family 5,000 miles to Rio, where he signed for Flamengo and won the Copa Libertadores. All that seems to have prepared him for another interrupted start.

'My first thought was, "Damn, I wanted to keep playing",' says Mari of the moment he was told he would be self-isolating instead of building on an FA Cup appearance at Portsmouth on March 2.

'But then you start to see this isn't just some flu virus. You see the magnitude of it all and you realise the professional side of things is secondary. What matters is everyone's health.'

Lockdown in Mari's new home was never going to be easy.

'We had only been in the house two weeks,' he says. 'The club gave me an exercise bike and gym equipment, but we were caught out. We had hardly anything. The little one, poor thing, has hardly any toys! We were inventing things to do, bake cakes, paint.'

Arteta had tested positive for coronavirus on March 12. 'We were just scared for him, hoping he would be OK,' Mari recalls. 'Things calmed down as the days passed. None of my team had the virus. We didn't test, but we did 15 days at home and no one showed symptoms.'

Those 15 days turned into seven weeks and only ended on Monday when he returned to Colney, to train in isolation. It was a small step on the long road back. Not a problem for someone who believes perseverance pays. Winning the Libertadores last November for Rio's Flamengo, with two goals in the last three minutes, was a reminder of that.

The dramatic victory in South America's Champions League also meant there was no need to win over new team-mate David Luiz. 'He's a Flamengo fan,' Mari laughs. 'He was watching, supporting us. It was incredible, madness. We had quarter-finals and semis against Brazilian teams and the Press really go after Flamengo. Everyone wanted us to lose. Those rounds were tense and then in the final we were losing in the 87th minute, then we turned it around.

'I still can't think how to put the way I felt. I was only there six months, I was the first Spaniard to win the Libertadores, to win the (Brazilian) league and to be in the Team of the Year. I have great memories.'

And a fan for life in Luiz? 'I wouldn't say fan, but we did talk about it for a couple of days,' he says of the player he made his Arsenal debut alongside in defence and who has helped him to settle in.

Before the glory of Flamengo came the grind of those three loans in three seasons.

When Manchester City signed him aged 22 from Spanish second division side Gimnastic Tarragona in 2016, it seemed he was about to get his big break. Does it grate he never met Guardiola? That every summer he would head to the Etihad for medicals, then fly off to a new loan club?

'As a player you have to have one thing clear: how much are you prepared to sacrifice to be a professional?' he says. 'The opportunity City gave me was huge. They behaved really well.

'The idea was always to go on loan, not into the first team. Of course I would have liked to have played a game and got to know Guardiola, but it wasn't to be.'

After loan seasons at Girona, NAC Breda and Deportivo, he says: 'It will never be all lovely, or all awful. But I was always clear, working with City, that I would choose places that would be good for me. You get out of loans what you put in. I improved every year. And I was clear that, whether it was with City or not, I was going to make it to a big club.'

He was at Deportivo when the call came from Flamengo. It was a bold move but he didn't hesitate. 'We'd changed clubs and cities four times in four years, so our mentality was that change is normal,' he says. 'A footballer's life is short and you have to make the most of opportunities.'

Now he does care where he plays. He wants to put down roots in north London. 'The time has come,' he says. 'I think I have found a traditional club, one where the people give everything for it. I'd like to be a great player for many years at Arsenal.'

He says the support in lockdown has been first class, with diet plans and training routines to digest and follow.

'We have meetings with the manager every week to analyse games. We look at what I can improve on, what he wants from me. The manager doesn't stop. The players haven't stopped.'

Keep calm and carry on. Mari is an expert in the field.