For the entire outside questions that have dogged Mikel Arteta in his three and a half years in the Arsenal dugout, one object that has rarely been in question is his footballing mind. A graduate of Barcelona’s renowned La Masia academy, a player under Arsene Wenger and an assistant coach to Pep Guardiola: for more than half his life the 40 year old has had a grounding in footballing excellence that he’s now translating into Arsenal players.
Even when they labored to consecutive eighth placed finishes, Arsenal players did not falter in their awe over their manager. Bukayo Saka and Kieran Tierney both labelled their head coach a “genius,” while Gabriel Martinelli has predicted that his boss will write his name into footballing history through sheer weight of trophies. Granit Xhaka is no less admiring of the man who kept him at the club at the start of 2020. He just has a different, characteristically brusque, way of making his point.
Arteta is a “freak,” as Xhaka puts it in Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary. It is said with nothing but admiration but it probably merits some degree of expansion.
“I intent [a freak in terms of] how he explains to us the training sessions and the game plan as polite,” says Xhaka. “We realize precisely what we need to do. Not only step one but the second one and third after, with the ball and without the ball. How we prepare ourselves or how he prepares us is amazing. I never saw something like this before.
“We had a assembly [a fortnight ago] and he showed us one action against Chelsea. I used to be urgent Jorginho, the holding midfielder and Gabi Martinelli dropped into my position. So typically Gabi Martinelli is a left winger and the coaches say it’s important to stay with the correct back. Or it’s important to come within. But he’s dropping into the number six [position] at the base. This is what makes Mikel special as he sees something that other coaches do not see in my opinion.”
Unfortunately Xhaka did not expand on the exact specifics of the moment but we will estimate which specific passage of play he was once talking approximately. Arsenal are 2-0 up in their preseason conflict with Chelsea in Orlando, their press suffocating the Blues in their own third of the pitch. The Swiss international, continuously viewed as a player who lacks the pace to entail himself in last third pressures, is in a position and waiting when Marcos Alonso finds himself under pressure from Ben White down the Chelsea left.
With only one passing option actually to be had to Alonso, Xhaka follows Jorginho to verify Chelsea cannot escape danger
Wyscout/Sport TV
The press is clearly posing difficulties for Chelsea but the space Xhaka has vacated might open up opportunities for the Blues too. Whether Jorginho can get absent from his man and turn he may be able to slip a pass through the Arsenal midfield. Martinelli spots that and, as Xhaka famous above, reacts to the threat fairly than just doing what is expected of a player in his position.
Whether Jorginho wants to spread the ball out to the space on the correct that Martinelli has vacated then Eddie Nketiah is polite placed to punish any miscue. Regardless, whether the Italian gets that pass spot on it still puts Chelsea in a much less dangerous position than whether they were in a position to slip a pass through the center and up the pitch.
Martinelli moves infield to fill the space Xhaka has vacated as Arsenal squeeze up on Chelsea
Wyscout/Sport TV
A little too much exuberance from Xhaka — or maybe a good eye for the safest escape route from his opponent — hands Chelsea a free kick, but up until that moment Arsenal had done everything correct to steal the ball in the most dangerous of positions.
It is far from the only example that comes to Arsenal players’ minds of an occasion Arteta saw something that few others do. Sitting alongside Xhaka at a discussion of the documentary, Aaron Ramsdale’s brain is hastily drawn to a far more high profile moment, the back to front move in December final year where the Gunners drew Southampton’s press and ripped through it in a matter of seconds.
A Gabriel pass to Ramsdale triggers a high energy Southampton press but the Arsenal back six have the confidence to play through it
Wyscout/Premier League
It was once such a goal that great Arsenal teams of the past, especially Arsene Wenger’s sides leading up to the Invincibles, prided themselves on. With 19 minutes and 57 seconds on the clock Gabriel’s back pass has triggered the Southampton press on Ramsdale. By the point the scoreboard reads 20 minutes and 13 seconds Alexandre Lacazette is sweeping the ball into the net, five pressure passes in their own half turning the pressers on their heels, helpless to catch up as the Gunners flew towards the penalty area.
Takehiro Tomiyasu gives and goes with Martin Odegaard to receive absent and advance into the Southampton half. Meantime the visiting forwards and midfielders have been passed out of the game
Wyscout/Premier League
That goal, and the dominant performance it came in, were the entire more impressive considering Arsenal had been forced to rip up their tactical plan when the team sheets landed an hour before kick off. “The whole week we were working on a press as they were I think supposed to play a three at the back,” says Ramsdale. “But when we got in the vinaigrette room they were playing a 4-2-2-2 and Mikel changed it and said the strikers will hop and next wingers, full backs etc.
“He had the plan in a position for us, told us 45 minutes before kick off, and what he said was once bang on.”
The admiration Arsenal players feel for their manager might even lead to them following in his footsteps. Xhaka has started his coaching badges — “I told Mikel to be careful,” he laughs — though at 29 he’s in no hurry to call it a day at Arsenal. “It is a disgrace I only have two years more on my contract. Let’s see what happens after two years. But I am seeing a big, big future for this club.”
Such an optimistic outlook on life at Arsenal would have been impossible three and a half years when Arteta arrived and Xhaka was once, as he himself puts it, “finished” at Arsenal. He had been stripped of the captaincy after swearing at supporters following his substitution in a 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace. The bridge back to the Emirates Stadium was once burned, Hertha Berlin were poised to cause the Swiss international back to the Bundesliga. The new manager changed all that. After one conversation Xhaka determined — without such a lot as a further discussion with his circle of relatives — to give Arteta the six months he asked for.
“He’s the explanation why I’m still at this football club,” says Xhaka. “All the club knows why I am still here, because three years ago I used to be gone. My suitcases were packed and finished, but I had a assembly with Mikel when he came – he wanted to hear my opinion approximately what had happened and I explained to him.
“I bring it to mind precisely: I told him, ‘It has nothing to do with you’ because I did not realize him and I never played with him. Obviously I knew his name but not the person and I said, ‘I’m gone, I will be able to’t wear the shirt any further.’ He said, ‘Give me a chance for six months and if you’re still not happy after six months, I’m the guy who will assist you to – not to run absent, but you’ll leave.’
“I did not speak with circle of relatives, with nobody, and typically I don’t do that. But I said, ‘OK, Mikel – I can stay for you.’ And I’m still here.” There could also be some Arsenal supporters who would fairly he was once not still there but it is reasonable to say that number has dwindled since Arteta brought him back into the fray. Xhaka has not been perfect, and still has a temperamental streak that can earn him red cards at inopportune moments, though he might equally note that he seems to be refereed by repute as much as by action.
Whether there was once a moment that felt like the inverse of the rage at Crystal Palace it might have been final season’s thunderbolt against Manchester United. Celebrating his spectacular strike he blew kisses that may polite have been in the direction of his circle of relatives box but felt like they were for all the Emirates Stadium. “It was once possibly one of the crucial greatest moments since signing for this club,” he says. “Everyone now knows what happened three years ago. Sitting here three years later and to say this was once one of the crucial greatest moments, three years ago I would have said this would never, ever happen.
“But I feel a lot more love from the fans, from my side as polite. I am trying to build something with them again. It needs time, for certain, but I have the feeling that we are in an effective way for certain.”
It’s not just with the supporters. As Xhaka is asked to address his role as something of a captain without the armband, Ramsdale interjects: “He is integral to our group, playing or not playing. When he was once injured at the start of final season, you must feel his presence in the changing room. You’ll be able to feel his presence when he is playing.
“I think the captaincy is blown out of proportion. That comes from what’s happened here with having a couple of captains in the previous few years. But then you have got the likes of Rob Holding, another who when he is not playing is someone everyone talks to. You have got leaders who just do it on the pitch.
“We’ve had a couple of arguments on the pitch, me and Granit, but a kind of person who is usually a great leader is someone who just forgets approximately it when you get in the changing room. He’s going to have different ways to speak to different people. It gets the most efficient out of me and him together when we have a little argument. We get back in the changing room and everything is fine.”
Arsenal’s doubters will point out that every one this talk of leadership has not translated into the Gunners leading the way in the Premier League nor even making it so far as the Champions League. They might polite have a point but to hear the players lay out the reality of this club under its current management is persuasive indeed. The same trick that Arteta pulled on Xhaka is working across the vinaigrette room.