Mikel Arteta's Unconventional Methods for Arsenal's Success
Mikel Arteta does not wait for chaos to arrive. He invites it in.
The Arsenal manager has lifted the lid on the unusual challenges he sets his players – from delaying meals to cranking up the heat in the dressing room – all designed to harden his squad for nights when the script tears up in front of them.
His methods were tested this week. Arsenal’s flight to Italy for their Champions League opener against Napoli was delayed by more than five hours, forcing the cancellation of Arteta’s pre-match press conference as the team finally landed in Naples just before 10pm local time.
No rhythm. No routine. No problem.
Arsenal still ground out a 1-0 win, stretching their run to 13 consecutive league-stage victories in Europe, sealed by a second-half strike from Martin Ødegaard.
Arteta insists that is no coincidence.
“I love those challenges. I try to create them in pre-season,” he said, explaining how he deliberately unsettles his squad long before the real pressure hits. “So when they happen, we already experience them and we already know. So, get to the stadium very late, change the routine as soon as the players have to do something else.”
He rattled through the scenarios that keep him awake and, crucially, his players ready.
“You can miss the flight, the train can be delayed, there’s so much traffic, and I don’t want the players, the staff as well, panicking.
“So, when that happens, adapt to it. ‘OK, we have another two or three hours on the plane, how can we use them?’ Play together, spend some time together, sleep, use it, but certainly don’t complain and then use it as an excuse because that’s not helpful at all.”
This is not a one-off response to a bad travel day. It is part of a broader, sometimes eccentric, philosophy. Arteta has already built a reputation for his inventive preparation: using pickpockets during pre-season to sharpen awareness, blasting crowd noise through speakers to mimic the Anfield roar.
Now he has revealed more of the detail.
“Just delay the meals, delay the transport, take a different route,” he said. “We have done many things: make the dressing room hotter, more difficult, more challenging, less [massage] beds. Those kind of things.
“Because we are going to have to adapt to different contexts and we will try to anticipate it and create the best possible conditions. But when there is that element of stress or surprise on matchday, it’s important [to be prepared].”
The message is clear: comfort is the enemy. Arsenal’s players are being trained to live in discomfort so that, when the real thing arrives, it feels familiar.
Different exits, different echoes
Arsenal now head to Sunderland on Saturday night, chasing a perfect start to the new league campaign after last season’s 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light. That game still lingers in the memory: Leandro Trossard thought he had won it with Arsenal’s second goal, only for Brian Brobbey to snatch a late equaliser.
Trossard’s name surfaced again this week, but this time as part of a pointed contrast from Arteta over how players handle their departures.
The Belgium forward joined Besiktas in July, yet was back at the Emirates last week, watching from the stands as his former teammates beat Chelsea. The relationship, Arteta suggested, remains warm.
“What is important is normally what happens three months later, six months later,” he said. “When Trossard comes in, he’s in the dressing room with all of us, the atmosphere and the relation you have with all the players that they left, at some point their relationship has been really good. I hope that’s the same case.”
That “same case” line carried weight, because it followed a very different story.
Gabriel Jesus, now at Barcelona, claimed: “No one told me nothing,” after being made to train away from the main group before his move. Arteta sounded genuinely taken aback by the Brazilian’s version of events.
“Very surprised, to be fair, especially because with Gabriel I had an individual talk in the dressing room,” Arteta said. “And the words that we used for each other, it was all about gratitude. So, I don’t know. It’s OK.
“Sometimes I understand when you have to deliver bad news or news that people don’t expect. Those things are reactive. Somebody has to be the bad cop; if I have to be, I have to be.”
There it was again: the willingness to embrace the uncomfortable role if he believes it serves the team. Just as he leans into travel delays and overheated dressing rooms, he does not shy away from the harsher conversations that shape a squad.
Arsenal move on now to Sunderland, still perfect in the league, armed with a manager who keeps pushing them into the storm rather than away from it. The question is no longer whether they can cope when things go wrong.
It is how far that edge will take them this season.
