Arsenal star breaks ranks to reveal Mikel Arteta's tactic to trick opposing managers

Arsenal boss often includes injured players in his squad to confuse his opposition, claims Oleksandr Zinchenko.

The Gunners coach has helped morph the north Londoners into title contenders during his tenure and is increasingly looking to play mind games. It is something Sir became synonymous for and the Spaniard is seemingly doing so as well.

Zinchenko moved to back in 2022 and has seen Arteta's rise with the 42-year-old using those unavailable to trick his opposition. Even this season the north Londoners have had to deal with several injury issues, but their manager has tried to use them to his advantage.

The Ukrainian revealed that Arteta will include the players who aren't available, making them travel with the team and walk into dressing rooms so that opposition think they could be a late inclusion.

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Zinchenko told : "[He] likes to play games with the opposition. I’ve seen him tell injured players to come on the team bus and walk into the dressing room with their wash bag, to put the other manager off the scent.”

That was evident recently when featured against at the Emirates. The winger had been struggling with an injury issue and in the build-up to the contest Arteta claimed he was "very uncertain" to play.

Despite that the Englishman started the contest and had a huge influence - scoring the opening goal for the Gunners as he caused Andy Robertson a range of problems down the flanks.

Arteta later explained: "I don’t want to make it easy for anyone. The opponent has to work and think and prepare and make sure they do their homework like I have to. I wish I knew their starting XI, who is on the bench, but I don’t. It is our job to guess and do the work we have to do.

"I will tell you everything but that has consequences. I need to be very careful because sometimes I can tell you a player is going to be a few weeks but is a few months. Sometimes I don’t know if a player is going to be fit in two days’ time or when the press conference is.

"When I know, I am not going to lie to you, I am not going to say 'he’s not fit' and then I play him, I would never do that but if I am certain or I don’t want to tell you, I will keep you guessing. This is my job. But as well to keep all my guys, everyone alert as well, that is important."

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