Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta spoke “the same language” when they worked together at Manchester City, according to former club captain Vincent Kompany.
Guardiola and Arteta go head-to-head on Wednesday night as they take defending champions City to the Emirates Stadium with the chance to move above Arsenal at the top on goal difference, albeit with a game in hand.
Guardiola won both games against his former assistant last season, 5-0 in Manchester and 2-1 in north London, but Arsenal are a different proposition this term as they seek their first Premier League title since 2004.
Arteta, who began his career as an assistant at Guardiola’s City in 2016, is responsible for much of their improvement before becoming Arsenal boss in 2019.
Arteta required patience from the Arsenal board during some initial problems early in his reign, but his current success has come as no surprise to Kompany, who spent three seasons working with him at City towards the end of his playing career.
“Like working with any good coaching staff, it was definitely an extension of Pep, probably the one in the coaching staff who was closest to the players, and who fully understood what Pep wanted as a manager,” Kompany said.
“You could see that Mikel was in that transition period from being a player to being a coach. He was hungry, he was very active, full of energy, and he was obviously in a good environment to develop and grow his own ideas.
“I’m not surprised that Arsenal are doing well and will certainly continue to do well, there’s no doubt about that…
“He has the energy and especially the resilience to deal with difficulties and continue, draw his own conclusions and improve. That’s why I think Arsenal are doing so well.”
Kompany has enjoyed success as a manager, with his Burnley side seven points clear at the top of the Championship – and 17 points clear of the automatic promotion spots – after a 3-0 win over Preston at the weekend made it 10 points. Series wins in a row.
Although he has often been asked how Guardiola influenced him as a coach, when asked if he had learned anything from Arteta, Kompany said: “When I go into a coaching room, maybe I’m the who transfers the ideas to the players but it’s me maybe three or four of the team members got the idea.
“It could have come from Craig Bellamy or it could have come from Mike Jackson, so they have a very coordinated response as a team.
“It’s hard to say that everything comes from Pep or Mikel because they work as a team, but they definitely spoke the same language, so you learn from the training group in general.”