Interview

Revealed: A day in the life of Mikel Arteta

What exactly does a typical day look like for a Premier League manager?

We sat down with Mikel Arteta for an exclusive interview as he approaches his 100th match in charge, and he revealed what his daily schedule typically looks like.

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"I get up around 7am, and the first thing I do is kiss my wife who is next me! Sometimes my little one is next to us as well," he said. 

"Then I just go and wake my kids up. It’s probably one of the best moments in the day. I hug them, they don’t want to get up to go to school. They just want to delay everything. I spend some time with them, help them to dress, and then around 7.30am I leave, out of the house. 

"I am here by 8am and then I need a peace and quiet moment for an hour. In the car I am already thinking about the things that I have to do in the day - the things that I have planned - how my week is going to look. 

"Normally I start to write, and go through the processes that I’m going to put in place to achieve on the day what we have to do. Then all the coaches arrive - Kelly, our PA is arriving. Sean the facility manager comes in and tells me if there’s any news. Gary the doctor comes in and gives you an update. 

"Then we all meet at 9am - all the coaches with the doctor, and with sports scientists - to plan a little bit what we already discussed and what our decisions are going to look like. 

"Then unpredictable moments can happen. We can have an issue with COVID, we can have an issue with a player, or a staff member. Or a player wants to come and speak to you. A lot of things can happen just before the training session. Normally we have a meeting before the training session, whether to explain the reason why we are doing the session, which stuff you want to work on, or just to review a match, or to work in a unified meeting, or whatever is necessary. Then we put the training session in place. 

"We train, we come back and we have lunch. Then in the afternoon, it’s time again to have more meetings, to do game preparation, to look at the opponent, to look at what we’ve done in a game or review the training session, plan things for the following week. 

"If it’s about scouting with Edu, if it’s about other things that are relevant then we keep going until pretty late at night."