Guillem Balague: How Arteta has led Arsenal to brink of Champions League after six-year absence
One of the things Mikel Arteta has done while in charge of Arsenal is plant an olive tree in the grounds outside his office.
He bought it not just as a reflection of his ideal football culture but also as a metaphor for Arsenal Football Club. While the fruit and leaves are the showpiece of the tree – the top players if you like – they are no more vital to its flourishing than the branches that hold them and the roots that grow beneath it.
For Arteta, those roots are the people who help the first team flourish and embody the core values that will make the club bigger and richer – such as respect, humility, a willingness to suffer and a no-blame culture.
Without these roots, the top of the tree would wither and die.
In April, after a run of three defeats against Crystal Palace, Brighton and Southampton, Arteta held a team meeting around that olive tree, where he talked them through this philosophy.
It might well be a coincidence but Arsenal have won four straight games since that meeting and are a win against Tottenham on Thursday away from qualifying for the Champions League for the first time since 2015-16.
The thinking that shapes Arteta’s vision
The injuries Arteta, now 40, suffered at the end of his playing career made him think long and hard about his profession. He would spend up to 12 hours a day attached to scanners, speaking to doctors, being treated by physios and so on.
He tried everything he could to recover – a battle he was destined to lose – and gradually he had to accept his playing time was at an end. He has never forgotten that something he loved so dearly was taken away from him, a feeling that still drives him.
His playing CV boasted 14 years in the top flight of English and Scottish football, having grown up in the Barcelona youth system and also played at Paris St-Germain, where he crossed paths with Mauricio Pochettino, then a player at the team he now manages.
His career has also been touched by managers like David Moyes at Everton and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, and he later drew on that experience to build a working relationship with Pep Guardiola, spending plenty of their time together on the Manchester City coaching staff asking questions in his quest to improve.
The experience he gained working with Guardiola was priceless, not least because it helped him refine his thinking process and establish his own philosophy.
He has always been a student of the game and, after looking deeply into the Premier League, now understands every aspect of it, from the interaction needed with the media, referees and fans, to knowing all about other teams.
In the last year of his coaching apprenticeship at City, he knew he was ready to take on a big job.
He was interviewed by Arsenal before they appointed Unai Emery in 2018, while other clubs such as Lyon and Newcastle were also interested in signing him.
Style-wise he is similar to his mentor Guardiola, although more along the lines of Premier League Pep – circa 2020 – rather than the Barcelona or Bayern Munich Pep of 2008 or 2012.
But in terms of his leadership, he is totally different to his great friend and former colleague. We will get to that.
Having been an assistant, one of his primary aims on joining Arsenal was to make sure he had the right coaching staff around him.
Arriving with him was assistant manager Steve Round, who brought with him a wealth of experience from working at clubs including Everton, Manchester United, Derby and Aston Villa. There was also Albert Stuivenberg, the former coach at Belgium club Genk and former assistant manager of Manchester United and Wales.
He chose them because he trusted them to ask the right questions, to have similar expectations, the same standards and integrity, and the necessary understanding of leadership, tactics and gameplans that could help Arsenal to win at this level.
They also had to ask themselves whether they had a synergy with Arteta that would help him succeed at the start of his coaching journey. The answer was positive and they all came to north London to win.
But first came the necessary step of changing the culture of a club that has not qualified for the Champions League since Wenger was in charge.
What is Arteta like to work with?
Working with Arteta on a daily basis is never going to be easy because he expects from those around him the kind of energy, passion and drive he expects from himself.
Most days he arrives at the training ground at around 8am and he ensures everyone is on their toes from the very start. I have heard people compare him to their favourite schoolteacher, someone whose expectations can be intimidating but similarly someone who you are genuinely fond of and who you know can bring the very best out of you.
He is a non-stop, perpetually driven ball of energy – but also fundamentally a man of compassion, a caring person with a natural sense of justice and someone whose main aim is to seek happiness and harmony in the dressing room.
It means he has to build and design a group that can create that required dynamic. That meant players like Shkodran Mustafi, Mesut Ozil, Sead Kolasinac and most recently Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were never going to last too long with Arteta at the helm.
Once he makes his mind up about the way he wants to go, he is unmovable. The pressure on all fronts for him to make peace with Ozil was as pointless as it was remorseless. Once he decided the German was surplus to requirements – a football decision based on his performance and attitude – his judgement was backed by the board and the German’s stay at the club was over.
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