Mikel Arteta Amatriain (Basque: [mikel arteta amatriãĩn]; born 26 March 1982) is a Spanish professional football manager and former player who is the manager of Premier League club Arsenal F.C.
Arteta played as a midfielder in his playing career. He began his senior club career at FC Barcelona in 1999, but limited playing time led to a loan move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2001, where he won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in his second season. Arteta joined Rangers F.C. in 2002 for £6 million and won the league and league cup in his debut season, scoring a 93rd-minute penalty on the final day. After a brief return to his hometown club Real Sociedad, Arteta signed for Everton in 2005 and was named the club's Player of the Season twice. He joined Arsenal in 2011 for £10 million and won two FA Cups before retiring in 2016. Arteta represented Spain through several youth levels but never played for the senior national team.
Arteta was appointed as an assistant coach to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City F.C. in 2016. He returned to Arsenal as manager in 2019 and won the FA Cup in his debut season and their first Premier League title in 22 years in 2026. Arteta has since become Arsenal's seventh-longest serving manager by games managed and the longest-serving current Premier League manager.
Born in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain, Arteta began his football career at Antiguoko and befriended fellow midfielder Xabi Alonso as they played together every weekend. The two often played along the beaches and gutters of San Sebastián and dreamed of playing together at Real Sociedad. Arteta left San Sebastián aged 15 in July 1997, with Antiguoko teammates Jon Alvarez and Mikel Yanguas, to trial with Barcelona's youth academy, La Masia. The trio played three trial games and all earned professional contracts with the club. Housed in dormitories, the academy lifestyle was notoriously strict and Arteta's Antiguoko teammates would leave the academy shortly after arrival. It was in these dormitories where Arteta would become room-mates and friends with Víctor Valdés and Andrés Iniesta as teenagers. Arteta also became a friend of Xavi Hernández during his tenure at La Masia. Arteta met then-Barcelona captain and his future coaching mentor Pep Guardiola during this time, while learning the practices of their then-head coach Louis van Gaal.
Arteta trained regularly with Van Gaal's first team but was limited only to appearances in Spain's Segunda División B with Barcelona B. Following Van Gaal's departure from the club on 20 May 2000, incoming coach Lorenzo Serra Ferrer brought Emmanuel Petit and Gerard López into Barcelona's midfield, pushing Arteta further back into a queue which already included Guardiola, Luis Enrique, Phillip Cocu, Iván de la Peña, Xavi and Iniesta. La Masia teammate Jofre Mateu believed that Arteta wouldn't make it at Barcelona purely because of his competition, explaining in 2023, "Everyone knew he had a chance because of his quality but Xavi was extraordinary and Iniesta could play every position. I wasn't expecting him to be a Barcelona star because of the others." With administrative changes in La Masia during the 2000–01 season, Arteta and a number of his club mates quickly learnt that their futures were no longer with Barcelona.
Midway through the 2000–01 season, Arteta was transferred to French club Paris Saint-Germain on an 18-month loan. He joined a star-studded team managed by Luis Fernandez, a team which included the likes of Mauricio Pochettino, Gabriel Heinze, Jay-Jay Okocha and Nicolas Anelka. Arteta would also later play with Ronaldinho when the Brazilian moved to Paris in the summer of 2001. He made his senior debut on 10 February 2001 against Auxerre in the round of 32 of the 2000–01 Coupe de France. Arteta started the match at the Parc des Princes and played the entire game in which PSG lost 4–0. On 17 February 2001, Arteta made his French Division 1 debut coming off the bench in the 34th minute for Vampeta in a 1–0 defeat against rivals Marseille, away at the Stade Vélodrome. Arteta was used by Fernández primarily as a playmaker during his time in Paris; he played 11 games in his first season and he scored his first senior goal on 12 May 2001 against Lille. During Arteta's second season with PSG, he won the 2001 UEFA Intertoto Cup in the summer, watching both two-legged final games against Brescia from the bench. He played 53 games in total for PSG and scored five goals. PSG wanted to keep Arteta at the end of the loan period, and did have first refusal on the player. Instead, he returned to Barcelona after his loan spell.
Arteta signed for Scottish club Rangers in March 2002 in a £6 million transfer deal. He enjoyed a successful first season in Glasgow and quickly established himself as a first-team regular. Highlights were scoring on his Old Firm debut, and converting a late penalty on the final day of the 2002–03 season, which proved vital for goal difference as Rangers completed the domestic treble of the Scottish Premier League title, Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. Arteta was injured shortly before the 2003 Scottish Cup final and missed the match.
Arteta started his second season with Rangers by scoring six goals in the first six games of the season as the club qualified for the Champions League group stages, although they did not qualify from that group and ended the campaign without a trophy. Arteta returned to Spain after two seasons in Glasgow; he later credited his spell at Rangers as helping him develop as a player, stating "Scottish football was tough, really tough. It was really physical, people got at you and I had to improve on that a lot. I think I did that to get to the level that the Premier League required of me."
He joined Real Sociedad for €5.2 million in 2004 with the idea being that Arteta and Xabi Alonso could play together. However, Alonso left for Liverpool and Arteta failed to establish himself in the team, starting only three league matches in the half-season he spent back in San Sebastián.
Everton manager David Moyes signed Arteta in the 2005 January transfer window on loan with a view to a permanent transfer. Seen as a replacement for Danish midfielder Thomas Gravesen who had moved to Real Madrid, Arteta played a vital part in helping Everton achieve the possibility of qualifying for the Champions League when they finished fourth in the Premier League; however, they were knocked out controversially by Villarreal in the last qualifying round. He scored his first Everton goal in a 4–0 victory over Crystal Palace, and signed a permanent five-year deal in July 2005 for a fee of £2 million.
The 2005–06 season saw Arteta pick up both the Everton Player of the Season and the Players' Player of the Season awards. Arteta's good form extended into 2006–07. As well as retaining his starting place, he frequently turned in man-of-the-match displays, and finished the season with nine goals from the 35 league games he played. Arteta was awarded the Player of the Season Award for the second consecutive year. He was also voted the Premier League's 'Midfielder of the Year' by the viewers of Sky Sports, beating PFA Players' Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo to the award.
Arteta's creativity was an essential part of Everton's attacking play the following season, and he had scored six goals by the end of January. That improved further a season later, with Arteta scoring nine times in the 2006–07 season and once again ending the season as the Player of the Year. He helped Everton secure a place in the UEFA Cup and was ranked by the ACTIM Index as the sixth best player in the Premier League, but it did not earn him a call-up into the full Spain squad. During the summer of 2007, he signed a new five-year contract.
Arteta added another accolade to his growing collection during the 2007–08 season, when he picked up the North West Footballer of the Year award. He then became the first Everton player in five years to receive the Liverpool Echo's Sports Personality of the Year award in January 2008. Arteta suffered a stomach injury in the second half of the season, and shortly before the final game of the campaign, he underwent surgery to rectify the problem. He scored his first goal of the 2008–09 season in the Premier League opener versus Blackburn Rovers with a free kick. He was named captain for a 2–2 draw with Newcastle United, scoring a penalty in the game. In February, Arteta was carried off on a stretcher in a 0–0 draw with Newcastle having injured a ligament in his knee, days after his first inclusion in the Spain national team squad. The injury kept him out for the rest of the 2008–09 season and the first five months of 2009–10. Over the course of the season, Arteta began to play in the centre of the field again, usually being partnered with a defensive midfielder. This gave him the freedom to dictate the tempo of the game and connect with Pienaar and Osman on the wing.