Mikel Arteta Transforms Chaos into Training Opportunities for Arsenal
Mikel Arteta did not curse the clocks when Arsenal’s Champions League plans were thrown off course this week. He smiled. This, in his mind, was exactly what they had trained for.
Arsenal’s midweek flight to Italy for their tie against Napoli was held up by air traffic control problems, leaving the Premier League champions three hours behind schedule. For most managers, that is a logistical headache. For Arteta, it was a live drill.
“I love those challenges, I try to create them in pre-season,” he said on Friday, before Arsenal’s league trip to Sunderland on Saturday night. His message was simple: nothing should surprise this team anymore.
Arteta has spent pre-season deliberately disrupting his players’ routines. Not by accident. By design.
He has made them arrive late to stadiums. Switched up travel plans. Changed what they do and when they do it, so that when the real world throws up a delay or a diversion, the players don’t freeze or fume. They adapt.
“Get to the stadium very late, change the routine so the players have to do something else,” he explained. Flights can be cancelled, trains can be delayed, traffic can grind everything to a halt. He wants none of that to seep into the dressing room as anxiety.
The instruction is clear: use the time, don’t waste it. If they are stuck on a plane for two or three hours, they are told to lean into it. Talk. Play games. Rest. Sleep if they can. What they are not allowed to do is complain or reach for excuses. In Arteta’s world, that mindset is “not helpful at all”.
His methods go beyond a few late buses.
Arteta has delayed meals and transport on purpose. He has sent the team on different routes to grounds. He has even had the dressing room made hotter and more uncomfortable than usual. All of it is aimed at stripping the shock factor from matchday disruption, lowering the stress when something genuinely goes wrong.
This is not a new obsession. The Spaniard has long been willing to lean into the unconventional to get a reaction from his squad.
He once marched into the dressing room carrying a light bulb, asking his players to be energetic and shine. On another occasion, he went even further, hiring professional pickpockets to attend a team dinner and lift phones and wallets from his players. The sting was revealed later, used as a sharp lesson in staying alert.
In 2023, a dog named Win started padding around the training ground. Win was not a mascot in the usual sense but a symbol, brought in to represent togetherness and the idea of the club as a family.
To some, these are quirks. To Arteta, they are part of a single plan: a group so conditioned to discomfort that a three-hour delay on the way to Naples barely registers.
The season will decide how far that edge takes them.
