Arsenal fans can’t believe what Mikel Arteta deliberately did to his players in pre-season

It’s fair to say Mikel Arteta isn’t normal.

We already know about his eccentric methods when trying to gain any sort of advantage for his team.

The latest example might be the most mental yet.

Speaking in his press conference ahead of Saturday night’s game against Sunderland, Arteta has admitted that he deliberately sabotaged Arsenal’s match preparations during pre-season.

This, unbelievably, involved engineering travel delays, cranking up the temperature in the dressing room, removing massage tables and delaying meals. All intentionally.

Mikel Arteta says he deliberately sabotaged Arsenal's match preparations during pre-season to prepare them for the campaign. He caused travel delays, turned up the temperature in the dressing room, removed massage tables, delayed meals etc.

— Sam Dean (@SamJDean) September 11, 2026

Of course, the idea is to make his players feel uncomfortable and see how they respond to adversity before the season starts.

But it is mad. It’s fine to say that.

“He’s a lunatic”, one fan wrote on X. “He’s Mourinho level mental. And I love it”, another wrote.

And it’s far from the first time Arteta has taken an unconventional approach to man-management at London Colney.

Mikel Arteta’s most unusual methods as Arsenal manager

Let’s play a game of naming our favourite mental thing Arteta has done.

There’s the time he secretly hired professional pickpockets to steal phones, wallets and other valuables from his players while they were eating.

Or the time Arteta put giant speakers around London Colney and blasted You’ll Never Walk Alone during training before Arsenal travelled to Anfield. This one isn’t that bad, but it’s comical looking back that we subsequently lost 4-0.

Then there’s the lightbulb. We all watched it on Amazon, when Arteta brought a lit lightbulb into the dressing room and delivered a speech about Thomas Edison.

There’s also the olive tree, Win the dog, the professional freestyler disguised as a waiter that nutmegged Oleksandr Zinchenko in front of everyone. Or when he got the players to stand in a circle and aggressively rub their palms together to “match their energy levels”. That one actually did work, which makes these sort of things harder to dismiss.

Because for all the bizarre team-building exercises, Arteta’s methods have helped win Arsenal the Premier League title and turned them into genuine Champions League contenders.

There’s obviously something to the madness. And who knows what else he’s tried with the players. Either way, it’s clearly working.