Mikel Arteta has admitted he felt “terrified” on his first day in charge of Arsenal.
The Gunners hired Arteta five years ago this week and at the time the Spaniard was just 37 years old.
Arteta had also never been a manager before and his only coaching experience was working as one of Pep Guardiola’s assistants.
He has since transformed Arsenal into title contenders, but Arteta has confessed he was a bag of nerves at the beginning.
“I was probably terrified,” he said. “You haven't coached anybody at the highest level. It was the middle of season, without any preparation, without a coaching staff, you get asked to take this amazing and big job.
“I was looking around at the people making that decision and they were so convinced. First of all, you want to respond to that trust, and I had very strong feelings towards the club.
“I just wanted to make sure I didn’t disappoint anybody, that I was capable of doing it. The only way of doing it is to start day by day, to start to experience that, to start to get close to the players and the staff and see it can work.”
The Arsenal job has been the only one of Mikel Arteta’s managerial career
Mike Egerton/PA Wire
Arteta had a huge task on his hands when he was hired, with a big part of his remit to reshape the culture of the club.
The Spaniard gutted the dressing room - terminating several players’ contracts - and he brought in someone to report to him on what the culture at the club was like.
“Well the first thing is understanding what is a good culture and a bad culture,” said Arteta.
“To do that what I did was basically ask, through somebody I employed, to give me their opinion of how they feel to work in this football club. Whether its players, as staff, in all kinds of roles, in all kinds of responsibilities.
“Then I had a very clear picture of what they thought and how they felt about it. And it was clear that it had to be changed.
“That was the roots of the football club. If those roots were damaged at that level, there was nothing to build without that.
“So in the first season, we had to put the energy [in] and it was a big decision to make sure those roots were clean and were in the right context and in the right place to be able to create and build what we wanted to build.
“It brought a lot of clarity and is not something random, that is a feeling. I wanted to get away from a feeling.
“In the past, this happened…no no, it is not a feeling, it is a fact. You tell me how you feel every single day about this, about this relationship, about the way we communicate, you’re part of the responsibility, this and that. Then it is something that is real.”
Asked who the person was that he employed to learn about Arsenal’s culture, Arteta said: “A person that is special. I say that. A really good friend of mine. You’re not going to get the name!”