Mikel Arteta showed his respect for PSG boss and fellow countryman Luis Enrique as Arsenal prepare to face the French giants in the Champions League this week.
Arteta and Enrique were teammates at Barcelona in the late 90s. Enrique ended his playing career early to go into coaching. He won the treble with Barcelona in the 2014/15 season.
Mikel Arteta on the other hand has only recently been a head coach; the Spaniard joined Arsenal in 2019 after serving as assistant coach under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. Arteta won the FA Cup in his first season in North London, and has built a very successful Gunners team.
Mikel Arteta says he has learned from Luis Enrique’s man management
Paris Saint-Germain face Arsenal in the champions league midweek. The French side won their first game of the champions league against Girona, while Arsenal could only get a draw away to Atalanta.
Arteta says one thing he admires about Luis Enrique is how straightforward he is when it comes to the players:
“I admire his honesty. He’s straightforward – he will look in your eyes and tell you what he thinks. In the end, players appreciate that. They might like it more or less, depending on how it happens, but I have had two or three players here who were with him in the national team, and they always said the same thing, they all enjoy playing under him. When somebody can make you feel like that in this profession, it’s a big quality to have.
“He’s won pretty much every competition you can imagine already in his career, he has transformed a club that has a very clear identity. It’s a very good test for all of us.”
Mikel Arteta has always been a straightforward coach at Arsenal since he arrived. He managed to shift a lot of underperforming players out of the team, including former Captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Jorginho who arrived at the Emirates last season, also praised Arteta for bringing a winning mentality into the dressing room.
Arsenal boss hoping to achieve what countryman has done in football
Arteta then praised Luis Enrique for what a good coach and person he is. The Arsenal boss admires the PSG coach and hopes to become as good as him someday:
“I’m a huge admirer of him,” he added. “He has an unbelievable personality, huge character, huge energy, always very supportive with young players. What I love about him is wherever he’s been, as a player or a manager, his fingerprints are all over the place.
“You can sense it’s his team the way his players behave, the way they want to attack and dominate games. The spirit, the energy they have, he has this unbelievable power with all the clubs he’s been at, with the Spain national team. And then his approach to life, to his profession – it’s something to really look at and I learnt a lot of things from him.”
