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4 months ago
22
Theo Walcott was not surprised to see former Arsenal team-mate Mikel Arteta go into management.
Arteta - who has been the Gunners' manager since 2019 - previously served as the club's captain for the final two years of his playing career, from 2014 to 2016.
Walcott, who played alongside Arteta during this period, revealed in a recent interview on the Up Front with Simon Jordan podcast that the Spaniard was behaving like a manager long before he was one.
Recalling a story from when legendary manager Arsene Wenger was still in charge, Walcott told Jordan how Arteta once delayed a training session by locking his team-mates inside a dressing room.
Walcott claimed that Arteta was 'such a strong character that even Arsene was afraid of him'.
Mikel Arteta (left) was Arsenal's club captain under Arsene Wenger (right) from 2014 to 2016
Arteta pictured alongside Theo Walcott (left) in an Arsenal team photo from September 2011
Walcott told the Up Front with Simon Jordan podcast that Wenger used to be 'afraid' of Arteta
'The turning point for me in terms of how I viewed Mikel Arteta was an experience I had with him as a player at Arsenal,' said Walcott. 'It was at a time when we weren't making the top four.
'We had training in 30 minutes and he locked all the players in the dressing room, as if he was the manager.
'He was taking control of the whole space and telling us how it is. In that moment it was like he was the manager, and that was the turning point for me.
'That's when I thought he could go on to be a manager. Arsene Wenger was waiting for us to come outside for training but we weren't coming out because Mikel stopped the training session.
'He was such a strong character that even Arsene was afraid of him.'
Former midfielder Arteta played 150 games for Arsenal under Wenger between 2011 and 2016
Arteta has been the manager of Arsenal since 2019 and has led the team in 232 matches
Walcott said of former team-mate Arteta that he 'thought he could go on to be a manager'
In 397 appearances for Arsenal between 2006 and 2018, Walcott scored 108 Gunners goals
After ending his playing career in 2016, Arteta joined Manchester City's coaching team and served as Pep Guardiola's assistant until December 2019 when he landed the top job at Arsenal.
After finishing eighth in his first two seasons and fifth in his third, Arteta and Arsenal have finished as runners-up to Man City in the last two campaigns.
This past season they finished just two points off Pep Guardiola's side, narrowly missing out on their first title in two decades.
Arteta does have silverware to his name as Arsenal boss however, having delivered one FA Cup triumph and two victories in the FA Community Shield.
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