"I love those challenges. I tried to create them in pre-season!" Mikel Arteta told goal.com, explaining why Arsenal were put through uncomfortable routines before the new campaign. The point was simple enough: when travel goes wrong in Europe, he wants his players to stay calm. That became a live issue when Napoli were on the other side of the journey.
How Arsenal were prepared for disruption
Arsenal’s flight to Naples was delayed by a UK air traffic control incident, and the club arrived about three hours behind schedule. Arteta had already been rehearsing that sort of mess. Speaking to Sky Sports, he said he wanted players to adapt when “the flight can be cancelled, or the train is delayed” rather than panic or complain.
He laid out the methods in plain terms: “delaying the meals, delaying the transport, taking a different route.” He also said he made the dressing room hotter, more difficult and less equipped with massage beds. In his view, the routine change was about creating stress before matchday, so surprise would not knock the group off course.
The results have at least made the idea look less eccentric. Arsenal have won their last five matches in all competitions and have won all three of their Premier League matches so far. They also opened their Champions League campaign with a win away at Napoli, which gives the travel-chaos story a proper European backdrop.
That does not prove the drills caused the wins, but it does fit the way Arteta works. This is a manager who has already used stadium noise in training and even hid a professional pickpocket at a team meal to test awareness. The Napoli trip looks like another version of the same idea, just with a real delay instead of a staged one.
The next test comes in the Champions League, where Arsenal will be judged on how they handle the kind of disruption Arteta spent pre-season trying to rehearse.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 6 outlets. How we work →
