On Friday morning Mikel Arteta held his pre-match press conference at London Colney. The Gunners will host Burnley, who currently sit 19th in the League, only two points from safety.
Despite Burnley’s poor start to the season, Arteta had nothing short of praise for Burnley manager Vincent Kompany. Upon being asked how he thought Kopmany was doing at Burnley, Arteta said, “What they did last year was incredible, especially the way they did it. In this Premier League, we all have difficulties. We all have good moments and I’m really happy to see him doing what he’s doing”.
Arteta was Man City’s assistant manager when Kompany was club captain. Arteta continued on saying, “I think he was already a coach when he played. He was a leader, someone very intelligent that could navigate very different scenarios really well. In the dressing room and above, he understood the game really well. He spoke several languages and you could tell straight away that he was going to be a top coach. Obviously, he’s had a very strong career already.”
Arteta revealed that he had discussed becoming managers together with Kompany. He said, “Yeah we discussed it. He was doing his badges, I was already there, and he was very connected to the coaching staff, connected to the team, and we had a lot of talks about football. You could tell straight away he would be a coach very soon”.
Arteta spoke about Kompany’s style of play on the pitch: “I think we have a lot of similarities in what we want to happen in games. I think the approach and the way we do it is probably different, hopefully, it is different, but I really like what he’s done”.
