‘I was terrified’: Mikel Arteta remembers concern throughout first days as Arsenal boss

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Mikel Arteta admits he was initially “terrified” when he took over at Arsenal five years ago but he is now relishing the challenge of pursuing perfection.

The 42-year-old is the Premier League’s third longest-serving manager after overhauling his club’s culture and transforming the Gunners into bona-fide title contenders.

Arteta is now thriving under the constant pressure, but confesses there was once a time when the whole project felt a bit daunting.

“I was probably terrified,” he said. “I mean, you haven’t coached anybody at the highest level. It was the middle of season, without any preparation, without a coaching staff, you get asked to take this amazing and big job.

“I was looking around at the people making that decision and they were so convinced. First of all, you want to respond to that trust, and I had very strong feelings towards the club.

“I just wanted to make sure I didn’t disappoint anybody, that I was capable of doing it. The only way of doing it is to start day by day, to start to experience that, to start to get close to the players and the staff and see it can work.”

Remoulding Arsenal’s ethos was a paramount priority for the former club captain, who three weeks after Unai Emery’s sacking took over a 10th-placed side languishing as close to the bottom of the Premier League table as they were to the top.

He said: “Well the first thing is understanding what is a good culture and a bad culture. To do that what I did was basically ask, through somebody I employed, to give me their opinion of how they feel to work in this football club.

“Whether its players, as staff, in all kinds of roles, in all kinds of responsibilities. Then I had a very clear picture of what they thought and how they felt about it.

“And it was clear that it had to be changed. (It was pivotal) because that was the roots of the football club. If those roots were damaged at that level, there was nothing to build without that.

“So in the first season, we had to put the energy and big decisions into making sure those roots were clean and were in the right context and in the right place to be able to create and build what we wanted to build.”

While Arteta would not reveal the identity of his mystery consultant, he said the person was “special (and) a really good friend of mine.”

Silverware has eluded Arteta so far, but his side took a step closer to securing some on Wednesday night when Gabriel Jesus’ hat-trick secured a 3-2 victory over Crystal Palace to set up a meeting with Newcastle in the Carabao Cup semi-finals.

Just three days later, Arteta’s men are preparing to face the Eagles again, this time away in the Premier League.

The Gunners boss said he is constantly thinking about how to become the “best possible manager for Arsenal” and – no longer terrified –  loves testing himself against limitless ambitions.

Arteta added: “One hundred per cent (it keeps me going).

“And how imperfect we are, especially, and how many areas there are still to explore and improve. And that’s the beauty of this job, that (time) is limited.

“You can work 24 hours and you still have a lot of things to do, and every day is a new day, brings you new challenges. You open one window and it’s like, ‘wow!’, and it gives you energy. ‘Let’s explore that one’.

“And I love that, because I have as well a lot of staff that they are exactly the same, so you get in the building and there is always that energy going on. And I think the players value that as well, because if not, it becomes a little boring and very systematic every day.”