“Trust the process” was the divisive rhetoric not too long ago with Mikel Arteta at Arsenal.

They appointed him in December 2019 and, aged 41, he is the Premier League’s third-youngest manager and has its youngest team. His job title was changed from head coach after nine months in charge, as Arsenal felt he could do “so much more”.

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Earlier this month, the Spaniard reached 100 victories as a manager with the highest win percentage (59.5) in club history, all the more impressive considering Arsenal’s eight-game domestic winless run during the November and December of 2020 and their turbulent start to last season.

Arteta has taken Arsenal from consecutive eighth-placed finishes in his first two seasons to fifth in 2021-22 to eight points clear at the top of the league with 10 games left in this one, and they are — as per ClubElo ratings, which use results to measure longitudinal team quality — at their best level yet in the post-Arsene Wenger era.

With the obvious caveat that the club will be selective in what they show us publicly, through their Inside Training videos and Amazon’s All Or Nothing docuseries, Arteta’s training sessions and coaching can be analysed — so, how has he made Arsenal so much better?

Coaching the 3-2-5

Arsenal’s in-possession shape is consistent: left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko rolls inside to form a central midfield pair (white dots) and right-back Ben White narrows to become part of a back three. Both No 8s push forward to make a front five with the No 9 and wingers (yellow dots), who play high and wide.

The pitches at Arsenal’s London Colney training complex have additional markings that split them into five equal vertical lanes: the two wings, the two half-spaces and a central channel. The idea is that, when Arsenal are attacking in games, one of their front five should be in each of these lanes at all times.

This is rooted in “Juego de Posicion” (positional play), a cornerstone of the modern Iberian (Spain and Portugal) footballing philosophy — Pep Guardiola, who Arteta assisted for three and a half seasons at Manchester City, has his pitches marked similarly.

It creates a repeatable attacking structure within which to find the spare player(s), with multiple passing options, and positions players so they can defend transitions. Players are allowed to move about within it — often, Gabriel Jesus will rotate to wide-left and Gabriel Martinelli plays inside.

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In the All Or Nothing series, Arteta shows the team a pitch map with the 3-2-5, alongside another one with players in different build-up positions. They have to memorise both and, when asked to recall, they do better with the trained shape.

“The fact that you train it — what it does to your brain — is because we are all educated right now, and looking at this (the 3-2-5), we process information based on that,” said Arteta. By training it, “if one player moves here, (they know) what the next one (has) to do, how the units work and interact with each other”.

The rondo

It has taken time, but Arteta has coached Arsenal into being one of the Premier League’s best in-possession teams. This season, only Manchester City average more possession (64.3% versus their 60%) and have a higher field tilt — the share of the combined final-third passes a team make in a game — (70.3% versus 67.8%).

Arteta’s constant rondos will have contributed. The format varies: it’s often six passers with two pressing defenders, but sometimes it is six-v-one, five/eight/nine-v-two, and can go as small as three-v-one.

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These various configurations prepare players for different scenarios that may occur in a match. At individual, unit and team levels, building up versus a 4-3-3 press is different to doing so against a 3-4-3.

Players are limited to one touch and have to make as many consecutive passes as possible, which calls for risk-taking and creativity in a condensed area. Arteta wanted “300,000 passes in the opposition half” away to Watford last season — rondos demand this.

He used a rondo in his first session as Arsenal coach back in 2019, intervening by saying “all the time we have to look for the free player, and everything we do is pass here (sideways)… I want this pass (through the lines)”. Martin Odegaard’s praise for his manager is that he does not just tell them what to do but is also “teaching us why”.

Arteta sometimes uses extra players (wearing orange bibs in the images below) in the middle of rondos. These are link players, to help play those passes between the pressing defenders.

Arsenal’s carbon-copy goals against Liverpool (Community Shield) and Fulham (Premier League) in successive games at the start of the 2020-21 season built up from rondo-style passing.

Practice makes perfect.

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) September 14, 2020

Let’s start with the one against Liverpool.

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Arsenal have seven players (goalkeeper, the back four and two defensive midfielders) against Liverpool’s five, with two central midfielders pushed on plus the narrow front three in a 4-3-3 press.

Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Elneny and Bernd Leno work a triangle around Roberto Firmino, and Rob Holding finds the spare man — right-back Hector Bellerin…

… who releases Bukayo Saka down the line. Arsenal are now out and it’s three-versus-three.

This build-up, at times, has gone wrong (see Xhaka’s error away to Burnley in the March of that season), but training rondos prepare players to beat the first line of pressure through intricacy.

“I cannot have a concept of football where everything is based on the opposition. We have to dictate the game,” Arteta said while he was still an Arsenal player in 2014.

The pattern follows against Fulham’s 4-3-3 press in September 2020.

Bellerin, pressed by left-back Joe Bryan, plays a first-time left-footed pass inside to Elneny and Arsenal are away.

They train these release passes in transitional rondos, which are two rondos set up side-by-side, but only one of them is live. Once a team has completed the target number of passes, they switch play to the other rondo, before sprinting across to become the defenders there.

Arsenal’s second goal at Fulham last month epitomised this — a 23 pass sequence, with 21 of those played in their half.

Having lured Fulham’s press into one corner — seven-v-six in Arsenal’s favour in an area that’s one-eighth of the entire pitch (black square) — William Saliba’s release pass finds Xhaka out on their left, and 12 seconds later they have their goal.

Unopposed practices

These drills are completed without opposition, something often associated with Iberian coaches.

It may seem ridiculous and irrelevant for elite-level players to train without defenders trying to stop them, but integrating and refining these patterns is both easier when unopposed and less physically intense.

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Arteta has repeatedly spoken about protecting his stars, particularly Saka, Arsenal’s most-fouled player this season (45 times).

“We have to train that (Saka taking contact), ” he said this month. “When to take certain balls, when to run, when to jump. We cannot control what the opponents are going to do, or the referee in a split second.”

Arteta repeatedly uses a diamond-shaped passing drill, where players receive either side of a training mannequin and circulate the ball, follow their pass and play one-twos.

They often attack with these diamonds in games. See their third goal at home to Crystal Palace in their most recent match last weekend, where Zinchenko and Xhaka rotate as Gabriel recycles the ball with Thomas Partey…

… then Xhaka, pushed on to form the front five, finds space.

He sets Zinchenko’s pass to Leandro Trossard, who returns it via a through ball for Xhaka to score.

Seven of Arteta’s eight most-used players so far this season were under 25 in August — the exception is 30-year-old Xhaka, who has called his manager a tactical “freak”.

Arsenal’s overall pass accuracy is up two per cent from Arteta’s first season (85.5 from 83.2), but they pass six per cent more accurately in the opposition half now (77.3 from 71.5).

Unopposed practices refine techniques through high repetition.

The screengrab below shows a technical practice where players control an aerial pass, take their first touch beyond the mannequin and pass into the target goal.

They even train the cutback goal unopposed — a move which is synonymous with Arsenal this season. The video below is from pre-season training last July, with Martinelli finding Jesus in behind, and Odegaard receiving the cutback.

Also from pre-season is their unopposed training of the up-back-through passing patterns, which Arsenal use to get their wingers in behind.

Positional games

Like rondos, but bigger. Players score points by completing a certain number of passes, by playing from one end to another, or by scoring into target goals.

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There are multiple ‘magic men’ — players who are always members of whichever team has the ball, creating overloads. Like rondos, the configurations vary but are more balanced (for example, six-v-six plus three ‘magic men’).

Arteta is selective about his target players; positioned on the outside, they offer direction for teams to play end-to-end and can be used to bounce passes off.

Goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale (below, orange bib) is often one of them, consistently playing short passes to recycle play, with centre-backs Gabriel and Saliba typically at the other end.

Arteta has played this role himself, too — the coaching staff frequently get involved.

Collectively, these practices are intended to develop players, units (for example, the back four) and a team that controls games but can pass in various ways: to create chances, to move the opposition and to retain possession to see out results.

An interesting variation is when Arteta uses three teams. The team who last lost possession are the ones defending, which encourages instant transitions and counter-pressing after turnovers.

Transitions have been a weak spot under Arteta; following the late win at home to Manchester United in January he said “the reality is that we still have a lot of things that we can get much better at, (such as) attacking and defending in transitions”.

Small-sided games and coaching style

“Sixteen low blocks we have faced this season,” said Arteta before the game away to Aston Villa last month, Arsenal’s 24th league fixture, which followed them failing to beat deep-lying Brentford and Everton sides on the two previous Saturdays.

Low blocks are often problematic for high-possession teams. In October 2020, Arteta said Arsenal “have to try to change our strategy a little bit and try to train against more certain blocks that I think are going to happen a bit more often.

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“We’re going to work on that and the moment we improve that, we’ll become even better.”

Arsenal have clearly trained at it — and have become better when you break down the results and goals scored in their top 10 games with the biggest share of possession in each of the past four seasons.

Match-specific preparation training is, unsurprisingly, not something Arsenal readily make publicly available, but there is one example of training against a low block.

Before Brentford’s visit last month, which ended as a 1-1 draw, Arteta played a seven-v-seven small-sided game where play restarted from either goalkeeper and both teams defended deep and organised. The pitch used for it extended from the goal line to the halfway line and was the width of the penalty area (57×44 yards; 52x40m).

A 2018 paper analysing small-sided games found that reduced pitch sizes “increased (the) number of passes, shots and tackles” at team and individual levels, and reduced the physiological output compared to using bigger pitches.

Arteta is often silent during these sessions, wanting players to find solutions for themselves, but he constantly changes his coaching position — at times walking into the game — to view aspects of play from different angles.

Brentford’s defensive approach to that game at the Emirates vindicated Arteta’s preparation. Thomas Frank had them defending passively in a 5-3-2, with the back five narrower than the width of the penalty area and all 11 players inside their own half.

Arsenal scored the cutback goal they worked on in (unopposed) training, utilising the front five to prise Brentford open out wide. Saka plays a one-two with Odegaard, who returns a through ball, and the England international finds opposite winger Trossard at the back post.

Arteta likes simple communication, even though he can speak six languages (Basque, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Catalan) and frequently code-switches.

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Last August, with Arsenal bottom of the league after losing their first three games, he started training by saying “Number one thing: clean sheet, no goals (conceded) and do your role and your task as well as you can.” He consistently expressed pride and gratitude for the team during that tough start.

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Arteta’s coaching style varies, stopping entire practices when they are not happening perfectly or demonstrating technical details to the group, but there are also plenty of one-to-one interventions with players.

For example, he told White “you have a level of aggression in some actions that you do, attacking and defending, that before I didn’t see, and you have to get out of that system to become the leader in the back line”.

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Thinking outside the box

White has said that Arteta “thinks of every single detail that could possibly benefit us”.

He has some slightly unorthodox methods — including something coaches call differential training, which involves changing the demands, environment and equipment to add variability and destabilise players. Providing them with different problems to solve requires adaptability and new solutions.

The best example was Arteta having the players train to the sound of Liverpool’s iconic You’ll Never Walk Alone anthem before a trip to Anfield in November 2021.

Yes, they lost that match 4-0, an outcome that can easily make the process look redundant, but Arteta explained he had previously been overwhelmed in a game at Anfield and felt he needed to prepare his young team, many of whom had not played there before.

EXCLUSIVE CLIP
The atmosphere at Anfield can be intense 🔥

So Mikel Arteta prepares his players by blasting out You’ll Never Walk Alone during training 🎶 #AONArsenal

— Amazon Prime Video Sport (@primevideosport) August 2, 2022

Another example is from the winter training camp in Dubai last February, where Arteta and other staff were throwing tennis balls at players trying to dribble from one side of the penalty area to the other.

Recently, there was the sight of three players performing a two-ball passing practice, with one ball a size five and the other a size one. That became a rondo using the size one ball — anyone who has tried to play with one of those knows how tricky it is to control and strike.

Arteta is a fledgling manager but it is difficult not to see this season as a defining one for him, as well as for Arsenal.

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He refused to set long-term expectations when he succeeded Unai Emery, and that has not changed. “We go training by training,” he said in January.

Arteta recently had club staff paint a big Arsenal badge — with the words “train to win” above it — on the ground at London Colney.

It’s positioned so the players have to walk over it every day to get to the training pitches… and they are following that message.

(Top photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images; design Sam Richardson)