{"id":281,"date":"2026-04-17T17:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T17:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/?p=281"},"modified":"2026-04-17T17:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T17:22:17","slug":"mikel-arteta-lights-training-ground-fire-to-inspire-arsenal-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/?p=281","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta lights training ground fire to inspire Arsenal players"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Arsenal<\/b> 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.<\/b><\/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 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 manager lit a fire at the training ground while delivering his rousing speech to his players. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is known for his innovative –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}