While his public persona is often quite clean-cut, there are times when the more imaginative side of Mikel Arteta that is seen behind the scenes is revealed to the wider world.Usually, it is not by choice.Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary series, which followed his Arsenal team for the 2021-22 season, captured some of Arteta’s innovative methods for motivating players, and some further details have seeped into the public sphere through other means.It is rare that the 44-year-old Spaniard offers up detail in the way he did in his press conference to preview the Premier League game today (Saturday) away to Sunderland. On Friday, he admitted he purposely disrupted some of the club’s pre-season plans to try to prepare his players for the unexpected.Clearly, he is more quirky than he normally makes out to be.Here is a look at some of Arteta’s outside-the-box managerial shenanigans during almost seven years as Arsenal boss.1. Delayed meals, transport and making rooms hotterWe’ll start with this week’s entry. Arteta’s admission came after a discussion around Arsenal’s routine being potentially disrupted due to a significantly delayed flight to Italy for their Champions League opener away to Napoli on Wednesday night.He said he loved those sorts of challenges and even goes as far as creating his own during pre-season, saying: “Get to the stadium very late, change the routine. Delay the meals, delay the transport, take different routes. We’ve done many things. Make the dressing rooms hotter, more difficult, less (massage) beds.”The aim with all of this is to make any future disruptions seem like less of a surprise for his players, no matter what they might experience on a matchday.If that seems extreme, the next entry is just as offbeat.Arteta spoke about how he mixed things up for his players in pre-season (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)2. The pickpocketsArteta frequently sets up dinners with his players to help with team-building.In August 2024, The Athletic revealed that at one such gathering, the manager had hired a team of professional pickpockets to secretly go around the tables, pinching phones and wallets from his players. At the end of the meal, he asked them to empty their pockets, knowing that many would find they were missing their valuables.The idea was to teach his squad the importance of being ready, alert and prepared — at all times. It was particularly fitting considering an on-pitch issue that had plagued Arsenal during the 2023-24 season was lapses in concentration which cost them cheap goals.3. Seating plansArteta has not only used pre-season to prepare his players for the unexpected, but also to mix up the group a bit more.In 2023, former Arsenal Under-21s left-back Lino Sousa talked to The Athletic about his experience while away on a summer tour with the senior squad: “Sometimes, for dinner and lunch, we got put into tables, and they’ll make the seating plan. One of the times, I sat with Mikel (Arteta), Albert (Stuivenberg, the assistant manager), (first-team players) Mo Elneny and Rob Holding, and you have to socialise. It’s good, because you get to know more about them.”4. Training to musicEpisode three of that All or Nothing series covered a 4-0 away loss to Liverpool in November 2021, before which it was revealed Arteta had blasted the Merseyside club’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ anthem out of speakers at training to prepare his players for the atmosphere awaiting them at Anfield.The result of the game opened Arteta up to broad criticism and ridicule, but that has not affected him. He has been happy for broadcast cameras to capture the use of music in open training (where the first 15 minutes of a session, mostly warm-ups, are in front of watching media members) since. In January 2025, after a run of one win in five games, his players geared up to Brazilian Samba music.