How boy who fought heart trouble made the grade as top coach

Mikel Arteta has shown the ruthless streak he will need to be Arsenal manager, says Sam Dean

On a Monday night in September 2011, Mikel Arteta clambered on to a chair in a hotel in Dortmund and proceeded to deliver a rendition of the Macarena that left Arsene Wenger “rolling around” in laughter. It was initiation time for the Spaniard, that moment when a footballer must announce himself to his new club through the medium of song, and he embraced the task with gusto. The story is told in the autobiography of Per Mertesacker, who joined Arsenal on the same day and was forced to sing a tune of his own during that trip to Germany.

“When it is time to have fun then I am the first one to do it,” Arteta said a few years later, when outlining his managerial vision to Arsenal’s magazine. Yet this is not to say that he was the class joker at Arsenal, or indeed at Everton, where he spent six years forming his views on the game and the way it should be played.

Instead, there was a seriousness to Arteta the player, who was seemingly always preparing in his mind for the moment he became a manager. That day appears to have come, with Arsenal’s executives now bold enough to back the former midfielder who was so close to the job only 18 months ago. As of last night, the two parties were finalising paperwork on the move.

It is a risk for Arsenal, certainly, but also for Arteta, who has generated so much hype with his work at Manchester City.

The Spaniard saw first-hand on Sunday how far his former side have fallen, sitting in the away dugout as Arsenal were torn apart by his current team. There is a long way to go and Arteta will need time if he is to convert his potential into points.

He should be up for the struggle, at least. Arteta learnt to fight from an early age, having had a rare heart condition diagnosed when he was a baby.

At the age of two, he had an operation which doctors said would prevent him from playing sport. The scar from that procedure, running straight down his chest, remains visible.

The heart grew stronger through childhood and before long he was playing alongside his close friend,

‘He was articulate and had an opinion. He knew how he wanted the game to be played’

Xabi Alonso, for the same youth side in San Sebastian. Barcelona called at 15, with Arteta making his debut at half-time in a pre-season friendly a year later, when he replaced a certain Pep Guardiola.

There were spells with Paris St-germain, Rangers and Real Sociedad before the Everton chapter, the longest of Arteta’s playing career, began in 2005, at the age of 22. “He was a thinker,” says Alan Stubbs, the former Everton defender. “He was articulate and he had an opinion, in a good way. He was very strongminded on how he wanted the game to be played, and he would always speak up if he felt something needed to be said.”

At times, his approach was a source of friction. “There were a few occasions when Mikel would say something and in his mind he was right,” Stubbs tells The

Daily Telegraph. “In the minds of a couple of other players, he was wrong.”

Arteta joined Arsenal on the manic deadline day of 2011, when the club reacted strongly to an 8-2 defeat by Manchester United and the departures of midfielders Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri.

He proved to be a steadying influence, impressing senior figures with his work ethic and ultra-professional approach.

He became captain in 2014, even though he was not always the most popular player within the Arsenal dressing room. Injuries restricted his playing time in his final two seasons before he made a tearful farewell to the club, and his playing career, in May 2016.

Saying goodbye was a tough moment, and there will be more of those in the coming weeks. At Arsenal, there are plenty of characters to control and no shortage of egos to manage. How will Arteta deal with the likes of Pierre-emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Ozil, for example?

He has evidently learnt much at City, and Arteta is unlikely to give anyone an easy ride. “As an individual, he would rather work with someone than against them,” Stubbs says. “But he is not soft. He has got a quiet ruthlessness about him.”