Gary Neville says Mikel Arteta did something ‘unusual’ even before Arsenal lost to Man United

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For the first time this season, Arsenal had no reply after having their lead discarded.

Before facing Manchester United, Arsenal had won every game in which they’d taken the lead.

The issue against United was that Arsenal’s game management was poor, something Gary Neville publicly fumed about.

Mikel Arteta has plenty of questions to answer, one possibly being from Neville, who thought the Arsenal manager did something out of the ordinary before the match even kicked off.

• READ MORE: Rio Ferdinand makes immediate Premier League title prediction as Arsenal lose to Man United

Gary Neville thought Arsenal’s training before facing Man United was unusual

There was a lot of excitement before the game, which was to be expected given the history behind Arsenal and Man United’s rivalry.

It was possibly one reason why the Gunners made a change to their training plans in the build-up to the match.

On Sky Sports’ commentary [25/01/26 16:32], Peter Drury informed Neville that Arsenal had held one training session at the Emirates before the United clash.

Clearly confused, Neville responded live on air: “Any reason for that? Seems unusual.”

The pundit and Man United legend didn’t seem to understand why the Gunners made the decision to train in the stadium instead of Colney, but we’ve seen it before.

Why Arsenal train at the Emirates Stadium sometimes

What might’ve seemed strange to Neville was almost routine for Arsenal.

On some occasions in the past, we’ve seen the Arsenal squad trade Colney for the Emirates for a training session, something Arteta has been doing for years.

In fact, in January 2024, journalist Charles Watts shared an insight into why Arsenal train at the Emirates when speaking on his YouTube channel.

“Mikel likes to do that every so often,” Watts said.

The Arsenal expert explained that the switch sometimes helps to ‘break things up a little bit’, offering a ‘little bit of a different vibe’.

The main takeaway, to answer Neville’s question, is that the players enjoy training at the Emirates, too.

“The players like it as far as I’m aware,” Watts said two years ago, adding, “they always like it when they go over and train at the Emirates.”