Mikel Arteta lived alone with tactical diagrams on the walls: what lies behind the eyes of Arsenal’s new manager
It says a lot about Mikel Arteta that there are people with knowledge of Arsenal’s new manager who are asking whether his final round of talks about replacing Unai Emery could be described more accurately as a case of him interviewing the club, rather than the other way around.
Arteta had his own questions for the board, just as he did in 2018 when he was interviewed about the possibility of succeeding Arsene Wenger, and again two years earlier when he was mulling over three different offers to kickstart his coaching career.
One was from Wenger to take charge of Arsenal’s academy, another was to link up with Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur and the third was to join Pep Guardiola’s backroom staff at Manchester City.
Then, like at City now, there was a great deal of soul-searching and due diligence before Arteta decided it was time to leave Arsenal. Not because he disliked what they were proposing, more that he found it too hard to resist being part of Project Pep. Even if that meant severing his ties with Wenger, the manager who had taught him so much, and the club where he had spent some of his happier times.
Arteta, you quickly learn, is not the type to put sentimentality or nostalgia above hardheadedness and clear thinking. His return to Arsenal will always have the easy narrative of an old favourite returning to the club where he used to wear the captain’s armband. In reality, there is a lot more to it — and he would never have taken the leap if he had not satisfied himself first that Arsenal were right for him. Arteta usually does most of the talking on these occasions, as Arsenal know from experience, and he certainly asks most of the questions.
Sources believe him to be a more rounded and experienced coach than when they interviewed him 18 months ago, and that it is his reputation as a tactician that matters more, ultimately, than his status as one of their former players.
On that occasion, Arteta left the clear impression that he would not be going into the club with the intention of overhauling the entire squad. Indeed his firmly expressed belief, The Athletic has learnt, was that Arsenal’s squad, player by player, did not need to feel inferior to City’s — and that he was absolutely serious when he said that.
Arsenal have been monitoring his progress ever since he left and, though he was desperately disappointed to be overlooked last time, sources suggest it may count in his favour that he did not come in directly after Wenger, which was always likely to be a challenge for whoever took the job.
Equally, there is bound to be an emotional attachment for Arteta given all the experiences that led to him making a teary farewell on the Emirates pitch on the final day of the 2015-16 season.
Arteta captained the team who came back from 2-0 down against Hull City to win the 2014 FA Cup final and stood two along from Wenger as the Arsenal manager flung off his jacket and tie to climb the steps and lift the trophy.
Twelve months later, Arsenal were back at Wembley again, this time with Aston Villa as their opponents. Arteta missed the game because of an injury that had ruled him out for the second half of the season. Yet he was there for the dressing-room celebrations — and even had a bit of fun at the expense of the men who have just made him the youngest manager in the Premier League.
Stan Kroenke, the club’s majority shareholder, entered the dressing room as the champagne was being sprayed. Ivan Gazidis, the chief executive, was also there. Arteta had the kind of gravitas that came naturally from being one of the club’s senior pros. “Hey, Ivan,” he shouted, “where are our bonuses?” And Gazidis went along with the joke, pointing to his heart as if to show that was what truly mattered.
Arteta was 33 at the time. The injuries had started to wear him down. It’s the kind of age where, for many footballers, insecurity can creep in. Even before then, however, there was a collective feeling behind the scenes at Arsenal that this was a manager-in-waiting.
Perhaps it was because of the slight air of detachment which meant he was always that little bit removed from most of the other players.
Arteta was popular, to a degree, and certainly respected for his ability and knowledge. But he did not always join in with the laddishness of the dressing room and he could divide opinion sometimes because of his standoffish manner. Arteta was intense, serious, driven. He could join in with the jokes if the mood took him but also had a slightly aloof air that could rub certain team-mates up the wrong way. He was a natural leader, obvious captaincy material, but he positioned himself differently to the other players — and was quite happy to keep it that way.
One of his frustrations at Arsenal was that Wenger did not tend to say a great deal at half-time. Arteta would often assume control during the break, taking it upon himself to pass on tactical instructions to team-mates.
On the training ground, he spoke more to the coaching staff than to some of the players. It was quite common for him to spend time with the video analysts, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of upcoming opponents. He was even known to take control of their departmental iPad to go through the relevant software and make his own suggestions.
It can be a selfish industry sometimes and most footballers tend to worry only about themselves. Arteta was happier when he was involved in everything. He saw it as his responsibility to be like that and maybe it was also true that he was wired in such a way he found it difficult to enjoy being a footballer as much as he perhaps should.
This, by his own admission, is one of Arteta’s regrets: that he did not stop more often to think how lucky he was, kicking a football around for a living, with all that uncommon ability, those deft little touches, the crowd’s acclaim and everything else that comes from being in that position.
He, like Guardiola, can give the impression sometimes that football is a cause of intense stress, no matter how exhilarating the highs. “He has a lighthearted side,” one person who knows Arteta tells The Athletic. “He’s a guy you’d like to be around — it’s not like he’s some monster. But at the same time he’s really serious about his work and holding people, and the players around him, to high standards.
“People always tell Mikel he has a fantastic life — wife, kids, millionaire, footballer, professional athlete, life seems pretty perfect. They would say to him, ‘Wow, you must really enjoy playing for Arsenal’ and he didn’t feel he could honestly say he enjoyed it. He knows that’s a crime. He’s totally self-aware that, ‘Everything is right in my life, how can I not enjoy it?’ Basically, he’s totally obsessed with trying to improve the extreme competitiveness he has.”
All the great managers and coaches tend to have that obsessional streak. In Arteta’s case, it manifested itself as a footballer who wanted to absorb every last detail of preparation. Not everyone would have been indulged that way and there are people at Arsenal who will confirm that, at times, certain staff would think he should mind his own business — or, to put it bluntly, “shut up, we know more than you.”
For the most part, however, they respected the way he wanted to learn and contribute and saw his inquisitive nature as a sign of maturity and intelligence.
Arteta treated his role as captain with extreme seriousness, on and off the pitch. He aligned himself closely to Wenger in a way that meant the other players sometimes joked he was “teacher’s pet”. Yet it all stemmed from a level of dedication that, in turn, meant he was given certain privileges.
He also had Guardiola championing him for longer, perhaps, than most people realise.
Indeed it was back in 2012, when Barcelona played Chelsea in a Champions League semi-final, that Guardiola made the telephone call that put in place the chain of events that eventually saw Arteta leave Arsenal for City four years later.
Guardiola had known Arteta, 11 years his junior, when the younger man was in Barcelona’s youth academy. Arteta’s debut for Barca B, at the age of 16, had been to replace Guardiola in that team’s midfield. They had kept loosely in touch and there was a level of respect that came easily as fellow graduates of the La Masia programme. Arteta lived in the same part of London as Pep’s younger brother, Pere, and there was a good reason why the older sibling was ringing: he wanted the lowdown on Chelsea.
Arteta’s information, the level of tactical detail and concise way in which he explained everything, left Guardiola with the clear impression he was speaking to a man with an acute understanding of the sport. As he thanked Arteta for his advice, Guardiola made a mental note that they should speak more often.
Then, in 2015, Arsenal went to Bavaria to play Bayern Munich in the Champions League. Bayern won 5-1 and when Guardiola spoke to Arteta afterwards he suggested they should team up if he ever coached an English side. Guardiola was already secretly negotiating to replace Manuel Pellegrini at City. That also happened to be Arteta’s final season as a player. Everything was falling into place. Arteta would go back to Munich later in the season to see, close-up, how Guardiola worked with his players. And the two men would quickly realise they were cut from the same cloth.
They are, after all, bonded by the same beliefs about what makes a successful football team and the shared philosophy that once saw a 20-year-old Guardiola shouting in the direction of Michael Laudrup, an international superstar, to “Keep it simple, Michael.” Laudrup, seven years older, had dribbled past three opponents in a part of the pitch where losing the ball would have been dangerous. “That was simple,” Laudrup replied, with a wink. But he knew his younger team-mate was right — and admired him for having the courage to say it.
At City, Arteta had his own office in the club’s village-sized training complex. He, like Guardiola, was not afraid to voice his opinion. Indeed, Guardiola would actively encourage his assistants to speak out and, if necessary, take him on. The manager had watched a documentary on rugby’s New Zealand All Blacks that convinced him it was better to be surrounded by challenging voices than yes-men. That suited Arteta and it was quite common to see the other coaches huddled inside his office while he scribbled notes or sketched diagrams on a whiteboard.
Players would often be called in for one-on-one sessions. Arteta was not particularly matey as a player, so nobody should ever think that would be his style as a coach. He liked to get straight to the point, seldom raised his voice and it helped that he speaks six languages. He could be blunt but, Guardiola always being that little bit more standoffish, there were also times when there was something of a good-cop, bad-cop routine about the way they worked.
One story goes back to the first game of the 2017-18 season when City played at Brighton with a wing-back system that required Leroy Sane to chase back far more often than he wanted. Sane did not like it one bit.
“Mikel came to me and said, ‘Leroy, I know that you hate this position but be smart. You’re young and still have a lot to do and to improve,'” Sane recalls. “I really get on with Mikel. He’s always right. He’s a very good person, and a great coach. He has given me loads of advice. We speak a lot about my movements, how to run into the spaces behind the defence, what I should do with the ball and the specific moment to change my speed. He’s always there for me.”
Arteta joined Guardiola’s staff at a time when his wife, Lorena Bernal, an Argentinian TV presenter and actress, was working in Los Angeles. The family has been reunited since but, for a long time, she and their young sons lived via an eight-hour time difference. Friends would visit Arteta’s apartment in Manchester and be taken aback, alarmed even, by the way he was living, with notes and tactical diagrams stuck on the walls.
The TV would inevitably be showing a football match from somewhere around the world and, if there was no live game on, he would, Wenger-esque, put on an old recording.
Arteta was willing to admit it was not healthy to be separated from his family and living that way. It was a sacrifice, however, that he was willing to make. And, again, it is the kind of story that makes it easy to understand why his Arsenal team-mates would sometimes refer to him as the “gaffer” — and why some players found it difficult at times to embrace him, or understand what might be going on behind those probing eyes.
What can be said with certainty is that Arteta takes his philosophy from working with two of the finer managers of the Premier League era.
In his final season at Arsenal, the club’s official website asked him to imagine setting up ‘Mikel Arteta FC’ and the ideas that would underpin it. “My philosophy will be clear,” Arteta said. “I will have everyone 120 per cent committed, that’s the first thing. If not, you don’t play for me. When it’s time to work it’s time to work, and when it’s time to have fun then I’m the first one to do it, but that commitment is vital. Then I want the football to be expressive, entertaining. I cannot have a concept of football where everything is based on the opposition.
“We have to dictate the game, we have to be the ones taking the initiative, and we have to entertain the people coming to watch us. I’m 100 per cent convinced of those things, and I think I could do it.”
To re-read those quotes now, with Arteta taking charge of a club that is 10th in the Premier League (as near, points-wise, to the relegation places as the top four) is to find a man whose career has been heavily influenced by Wenger.
Trust your team-mates, Arteta says, because sometimes you may have to put them in trouble with a pass in a tight area of the pitch. But on those occasions, he also points out, it is not enough just to find your team-mate. “You have to play the ball to their safer side — their stronger foot or where there’s more space for them to turn into,” he says. “Sometimes just playing the ball into his feet isn’t good enough.”
There are smaller details too. Arteta goes on to explain that a team that gives away needless fouls and throw-ins can lose their momentum, which is sometimes not easy to get back. He will tell his players not to be dragged into the kind of game that might favour the opposition. And he goes by the mantra that it is less tiring to play with the ball than without it. “If you keep the ball then the opposition will get tense and want to get aggressive,” he says. “This will force them to break out of their positions and this is when you expose the space. Patience — that’s the difference between a good player and a top player.”
This is not the usual way that a 30-something player will talk about the sport. Yet it all fits in with the way Arteta played the game himself, from his formative years at Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain (where he came to think of team-mate Pochettino, then an Argentina international defender, as a “big brother”), then Rangers and Everton before re-inventing himself as a holding midfielder for Arsenal.
Arteta was twice named Everton’s player of the year and passed the ball so stylishly in his time on Merseyside it felt like an oversight that Spain, even with their surplus of category-A midfielders, never awarded him a single international cap. Arteta was far too humble to say so himself. He was so popular with Everton supporters, the Blue Kipper website sabotaged a Premier League poll to find its most impressive midfielder and, to his intense embarrassment, voted him ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, then of Manchester United.
Arteta would also beat Steven Gerrard, in fairer circumstances, to win the Liverpool Echo’s Sports Personality of the Year award for 2007. On that occasion it says a lot for his lack of ego that he was so taken aback he didn’t have a thank-you speech prepared.
Yet when the opportunity arose to join Arsenal, on the final day of the summer 2011 transfer window, there was another example of Arteta’s single-minded attitude.
Arsenal came in late for him, the day after they had been trounced 8-2 by Manchester United at Old Trafford. It wasn’t a particularly attractive offer financially and there was not even time to take a medical. Arteta, however, had decided he wanted to do it — and the people who know him best say that, once his mind is made up, he tends to get his own way.
Arteta is understood to have demanded in person that he be allowed to go, with Bill Kenwright, who was upset by the deal, placing an emotional and ultimately futile call to Arsenal, cursing them for luring his player at the 11th hour.
“He (Arteta) is very charismatic and very driven, so once he gets something into his head it’s very difficult to resist,” one source said of that night.
Arteta learnt English after moving to Glasgow and was fluent by the time he joined Arsenal. He had also found out the hard way that the British game can be a lot more physical than its equivalents in Spain or France. Before a game for Everton against Blackburn in 2008, Arteta’s team-mates warned him the opposition players would try to kick him out of the game. They were right — and Arteta had Blackburn’s Morten Gamst Pedersen round the throat at one point.
When a Manchester derby at Old Trafford in 2017 ended in a fight between the two sets of players, Arteta was among City’s coaching staff in the scrum, coming out with a bloodied face having been hit by a flying drinks bottle. He was also accused of provoking an argument with Lionel Messi when City played Barcelona the previous year (Guardiola denied it) and it will be worth keeping an eye on his relationship with Jose Mourinho now they are either side of the Arsenal-Tottenham Hotspur battle lines.
Mourinho cited Arteta in one long diatribe a few years ago in which the then-Chelsea manager accused Arsenal’s players of having a “tradition of crying.” Arteta had been hurt in a challenge with John Obi Mikel and Mourinho wanted to shape the headlines in a way that would get under Wenger’s skin.
Arteta chose to rise above it. After all, his own policy is that the best way to hurt your opponent is to out-pass them, outmanoeuvre them and out-think them.
