{"id":536402,"date":"2026-04-17T18:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/536402\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T18:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:23:09","slug":"mikel-arteta-lights-training-ground-fire-to-inspire-arsenal-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/536402\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta lights training ground fire to inspire Arsenal players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arsenal<\/a> boss Mikel Arteta is known for his innovative – often unorthodox – methods to motivate his players. This week he lit a fire at their London Colney training ground.<\/p>\n

Why? To “prepare” for a crucial week, he said.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, they hosted Sporting in the Champions League and secured a place in the semi-finals. Next up is a visit to Manchester City<\/a> in the Premier League on Sunday – their closest challengers in the title race.<\/p>\n

“Every game we use different themes to try to prepare the game in the best possible way and that depends on what we do,” said Arteta.<\/p>\n

“The best ones are the players’ initiatives. That’s the ones I love the most.”<\/p>\n

Having last won a trophy in 2020 with the FA Cup, during Arteta’s first season in charge, and not being league champions for 22 years, the pressure has intensified to deliver success.<\/p>\n

Before the midweek tie against Sporting, Arteta asked his side to play with “pure fire” – though ultimately, they limped to the semi-finals with a 0-0 draw.<\/p>\n

“No fear, pure fire. That’s it,” he said before the game.<\/p>\n

“Pure fire, that’s what I want to see from the players, the people, myself.”<\/p>\n

And to bring the metaphor to life, the Arsenal<\/a> manager lit a fire at the training ground while delivering his rousing speech to his players. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is known for his innovative – often unorthodox – methods to motivate his players.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-536402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}