‘Delay the meals’: Mikel Arteta reveals latest maverick Arsenal methods

Mikel Arteta has revealed that he likes to set players challenges, such as delaying their meals before matches and making the dressing room hotter, to ensure they are fully prepared for any eventuality.Arsenal’s flight to Italy for their Champions League opener against Napoli this week was delayed for more than five hours, with Arteta forced to cancel his pre-match press conference after the squad arrived in Naples just before 10pm local time. The disruption proved no handicap as they made it 13 successive league-stage victories in Europe, thanks to Martin Ødegaard’s second-half winner.Arteta has a reputation for his innovative methods having previously employed pickpockets during pre-season training camps and preparing for a trip to Anfield by pumping crowd noises through a speaker. The Arsenal manager has now explained how his players have been trained to expect things to go wrong. “I love those challenges. I try to create them in pre-season,” he said. “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. Because when it happens, and it can happen, 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. ‘Okay, 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.”Asked what other methods he has employed, Arteta added: “Just delay the meals, delay the transport, take a different route. 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].”Arsenal travel to Sunderland on Saturday night looking to extend their 100% start to the new campaign after being held to a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light last year. Leandro Trossard scored Arsenal’s second goal before Brian Brobbey’s late equaliser and Arteta contrasted the Belgium forward’s reaction to leaving in the summer with that of Gabriel Jesus. “No one told me nothing” said the Brazilian, who was made to train separately from the rest of Arsenal’s squad before moving to Barclona. Trossard, meanwhile, was at the Emirates for last week’s win over Chelsea having joined Beskitas in July.“Very surprised, to be fair, especially because with Gabriel I had an individual talk in the dressing room,” said Arteta. “And the words that we used for each other, it was all about gratitude. So, I don’t know. It’s okay. 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.“What is important is normally what happens three months later, six months later. 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.”