{"id":1820,"date":"2026-09-25T17:25:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/25\/arsenals-mikel-arteta-uses-desirable-difficulties-to-prepare-his-players-is-this-a-good-coaching-strategy\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T17:25:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:25:39","slug":"arsenals-mikel-arteta-uses-desirable-difficulties-to-prepare-his-players-is-this-a-good-coaching-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/25\/arsenals-mikel-arteta-uses-desirable-difficulties-to-prepare-his-players-is-this-a-good-coaching-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal\u2019s Mikel Arteta uses \u2018desirable difficulties\u2019 to prepare his players \u2013 is this a good coaching strategy?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mikel Arteta talks to Arsenal player Noni Madueke during their Champions League victory over Napoli on September 9 2026.<\/span> ErreRoberto\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The former England rugby union coach, Sir Clive Woodward, once shared an anecdote about an unexpectedly delayed diving contest, after an interloper in fancy dress had jumped in the pool.<\/p>\n

Woodward described how some competitors became overly anxious<\/a>, ill-focused and disturbed, while others stayed calm, continued their preparation, and treated these altered circumstances as part of the challenge. Not surprisingly, the latter divers performed much better when the competition resumed.<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, Arsenal men\u2019s football manager Mikel Arteta spoke recently about deliberately creating unexpected disruptions<\/a> for his players as part of their preparation. The Spaniard, whose contract has just been extended<\/a> by the Premier League champions, explained that he does this to promote greater adaptability among his players, when they have to perform at the highest level under fluctuating real-world circumstances.<\/p>\n

Arteta\u2019s tactics include unexpectedly delaying the players\u2019 meals, changing their travel plans, making dressing rooms hotter and reducing the number of massage beds. Another reported example was secretly hiring professional pickpockets<\/a> at a team dinner, to emphasise the importance of maintaining awareness against opponents known for stealing advantages.<\/p>\n

Arteta is not the first elite coach to use such management tactics. But is there any evidence that they work? And should we be adopting similar tactics in our own lives and organisations?<\/p>\n

Legendary coaches unsettled their players<\/h2>\n

Many top sports coaches have found unusual ways of provoking players to try to heighten their match readiness. The legendary American football coach Bill Belichick \u2013 whose favourite Sun Tzu quote<\/a> is \u201cevery battle is won before it is fought\u201d \u2013 would make conditions as hard as possible in training for his players, such as the state of the balls<\/a>. \u201cWet, sticky, cold, slippery \u2013 however bad we can make them, I make them,\u201d he boasted.<\/p>\n

Across the Atlantic, Nottingham Forest\u2019s all-conquering football manager Brian Clough would regularly unsettle players and opponents alike with his strategically unpredictable behaviour<\/a>. One one occasion, he threw one of his player\u2019s boots into the crowd, declaring that if he was not going to use them properly, someone else might want to. Complacency was rarely an issue with Clough\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n

The Brian Clough school of coaching. Video: Innovative Sports Consultancy.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But what appears to distinguish Arteta\u2019s methods is a heightened focus on the potential value of everyday operational disruptions for player development. This mimics research undertaken by US psychologists Robert and Elizabeth Bjork on the effect of \u201cdesirable difficulties\u201d<\/a> as a means of enhancing learning capabilities.<\/p>\n

Their work found that introducing short-term, effortful challenges into education plans could enhance learning and retention. Discomfort could be beneficial when viewed not as an obstacle, but a means to promote adaptability and development.<\/p>\n

Canadian sport psychologist Nicola Hodges has also worked on desirable difficulties in high-performance sport, emphasising the importance of incorporating challenge and difficulty in training to help athletes adapt. Her training regime framework<\/a> suggests optimal learning often arises from struggle with appropriately challenging situations \u2013 but only if the level of struggle is calibrated with the learner\u2019s capabilities.<\/p>\n

The context of the challenge is also important. Hodges concludes that difficulties should be meaningful \u2013 such as training when fatigued or with crowd noise \u2013 to promote useful transfer to situations that are likely to happen in the real world.<\/p>\n

Locating the \u2018challenge point\u2019<\/h2>\n

The fact that Arteta has talked about this unusual training tactic now is interesting. It came after disruption to Arsenal\u2019s Champions League travel plans, caused by a major UK air traffic control issue<\/a>, were taken in the team\u2019s stride.<\/p>\n

They still won away at Italian giants Napoli, after which Arteta revealed he had deliberately made his team late for matches<\/a> in pre-season, to prepare them for just such an eventuality. \u201cI don\u2019t want the players and staff panicking,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen that [disruption] happens, adapt to it \u2013 don\u2019t use it as an excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having won the Premier League title for the first time as Arsenal manager last season, it might be that Arteta now feels more emboldened to further challenge the players and reduce the likelihood of complacency.<\/p>\n

Video: BBC Sport (2022)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a similarly successful season with Portuguese club Porto, the emerging managerial great Jos\u00e9 Mourinho deliberately adopted a more demanding tactical model. He later explained<\/a> that this was to force his players to be more rigorous, focused, and to \u201cget them on a short leash\u201d, rather than allowing them to rest on their laurels.<\/p>\n

Hodges writes<\/a> about locating the \u201cchallenge point\u201d for each player, where adaptation is maximised without risk of demotivating or overwhelming them. Of course, this point is different for each player, depending on their physical and mental characteristics.<\/p>\n

This is a consideration for Arteta moving forward. As champions, how far should the bar be raised collectively to promote further improvement? And how much uncertainty and difficulty can each of his players tolerate? An unexpected bump in the road to another league title came recently with defeat to Brighton<\/a>, where they faced unsettlingly unusual \u201cpressing traps\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Arteta\u2019s approach parallels Stoic resilience training, and the notion that preparing for difficulty in a controlled environment can bolster performance later when encountering uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Stoic philosophy<\/a> emphasises that external circumstances are not under our control, but our reactions and choices are. Stoics intentionally exposed themselves to minor hardships such as cold baths, to train their ability to maintain composure and adaptability.<\/p>\n

The psychological principle underpinning this, well supported by empirical evidence<\/a>, is that exposure to manageable, planned stressors can promote adaptability, focus and resilience. For any of us in any walk of life, difficulties may indeed sometimes prove desirable.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

David Turner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mikel Arteta talks to Arsenal player Noni Madueke during their Champions League victory over Napoli on September 9 2026. ErreRoberto\/Shutterstock The former England rugby union coach, Sir Clive Woodward, once shared an anecdote about an unexpectedly delayed diving contest, after an interloper in fancy dress had jumped in the pool. Woodward described how some competitors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}