The Arsenal manager reflects on his intensity, approaches to personal development and evolving relationship with fans
Mikel Arteta is extremely intense. That much becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly during the early episodes of All or Nothing: Arsenal – Amazon’s fly‑on‑the-wall documentary of the club’s 2021‑22 season. His team talks are life and death: opponents are there to be killed, expletives screeched. “Whatever happens I don’t want one fucking player complaining, one fucking player walking,” he demands from the Emirates Stadium changing room at half‑time, before sending the team back out to face Chelsea.
His intensity doesn’t let up as I sit opposite him, on a picnic bench outside Arsenal’s London Colney training centre, before the documentary’s release. “It’s who I am,” Arteta says, as he dispatches my questions with a ruthless efficiency and the unfaltering stare of a hawk studying its prey.
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