It’s 8am on Friday morning, exactly a week after Manchester City were found humiliatingly guilty of breaking financial fair play rules in a decision that has shaken football’s foundations.

Mikel Arteta, who spent three years under Pep Guardiola at The Etihad from 2016 to 2019 overlapping the period when much of the rule-breaking was perpetrated – is sitting bolt upright at his desk in the office of Arsenal’s London Colney training ground, raring to get started.

“This is late for me,” says the 44-year-old Spaniard. 

Post-it notes pepper the noticeboard, while an intricate web of handwritten formula, snaking arrows, and forensically executed bullet points inspire images of Russell Crowe wrestling with the Nash equilibrium in A Beautiful Mind.

The graphical representation of Bukayo Saka’s wing threat, perhaps?

Or maybe a defence unlocking projection of Erling Haaland’s future role for the current Premier League champions, should the free-scoring Viking decide to row south from Manchester.

Would Arteta sign the Norwegian hitman if he becomes available, when his tarnished former employers’ punishment eventually drops?

He laughs off the impertinence of such a suggestion like a man who has been relentlessly parrying media barbs ever since he took over the reins at The Emirates almost seven years ago.

“You know I can’t respond to any of those questions,” he says, side stepping the enquiry as deftly as he used to dodge tackles as a player for his current employers during Arsene Wenger’s sunset seasons. 

The brief today is strictly no Manchester City questions and no mention of anything that might deliver his rivals even the slightest indication of his masterplan to maintain Arsenal’s dominance, a prospect now surely even more palpable in the wake of City’s seemingly inevitable demise.

Very much on the table for a manager who has long adhered to the marginal gains theory popularised by Dave Brailsford and Dr Steve Peters in their work with British cycling, Mikel Arteta is here primarily to discuss his partnership with Bupa’s genome testing What You Are Made Of campaign.

It involves testing participants’ DNA to give them a heads up on any current and potential biological issues they might be facing, essentially handing them power to make better future decisions. Arteta did the test – the results are below – and it is a philosophy that chimes seamlessly with his ethos of perpetually striving for progress.

It is this obsession with progression that has so far garnered Arteta eight trophies as a player with Paris Saint-Germain, Rangers and Arsenal, followed by five as a manager with Arsenal and a further seven as Pep Guardiola’s right-hand man at Manchester City. Unless they’re chalked off.

“I don’t like to use the word obsession,” says Arteta, whose playing career took off at Paris Saint-Germain in 2001 after he failed to break into Barcelona’s all conquering noughties midfield.

“I prefer to use the word passion. That passion and drive that you have to be the best version of yourself for yourself, and for the club. 

“It’s about leading by example. It has to start with you. This job is so emotional and so random, that you need to grab the bull by the horns and be the leader.

“If people see Mikel Arteta and they see that he’s in pain or he is tired or he’s not sleeping, then that is not the best version that I can give. 

“This position demands a lot of passion and to deliver that passion I have to be the best I can physically and mentally be.”

Despite his occasionally irritable press conference demeanour, especially after losses to his local rivals Tottenham – for full transparency, I’m an Spurs season ticket holder – Arteta insists that he’s impervious to criticism.

“I don’t use the word pressure because I relate to the level of passion people have for the game. That same passion that I have had since I was two years old. That’s what drives me to success for the club, the staff, the players, our supporters. 

“I don’t call that pressure. You talk about people screaming and shouting and experiencing those emotions that we have helped create. That’s not pressure. That’s a privilege.”

Whether Arteta has to melt his Manchester City medals or not, it’s undisputable that winning is in his DNA, a fact that he attributes to his ability to assimilate culturally as well as athletically.

“I’ve taken so much from all the different cultures, countries and people I’ve experienced,” says San Sebastian-born Arteta, who gained British citizenship in 2010.

“I started in San Sebastian, then I went to Barcelona, then to Paris, then Glasgow, then back to San Sebastian, then to Liverpool and Manchester and London; and in all of those places I’ve been open to completely different ways of thinking.

“I’ve learnt different languages, I’ve inherited things from their cultures, other ideas, other methodologies and I’ve been adaptable to whatever context has been thrown at me.”

There have been mistakes too, most notably his decision to return to Real Sociedad from Rangers in 2004, sparked by his parents’ divorce.

Haunted that his desire to pursue his football dream might have contributed to his family’s turmoil, he returned to his hometown the season after winning the Scottish championship with the Glasgow giants, and it, “definitely was the wrong decision.”

“I thought that being closer to my family and closer to my city and going back was going to resolve a lot of issues, but it was a disaster, personally and professionally.

“I stepped back. I wasn’t playing and I didn’t enjoy not feeling part of things but in the end, it turned out to be the best decision that I made in my whole career because I realised how tough it was when you don’t feel important when you don’t play and how much I loved the game.

“I realised I made a naïve decision that at the time I thought could have ruined my career, but it actually turned out to be the best thing I did, in that it helped me make much better decisions in the future.”

One decision taken out of Arteta’s hands was his flirtation with Fabio Capello’s England team around the 2010 World Cup.

Aware that Spain’s World Cup-winning midfield was overflowing with generational talents including Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Cesc Fabregas and his old schoolfriend Xabi Alonso, Arteta threw his hat into the ring for a Three Lions call up only to be thwarted by an obscure Fifa rule which surfaced because he’d played for his birth country’s Under-16 and Under-17 sides. But he’s phlegmatic about the missed opportunity.

“I was very conscious of the situation I had with the Spanish team and the amount of talent that was there,” he said, “so yes, we talked about the possibility and I would have done it, but the rules at the time were different so they wouldn’t allow me to do it. 

“But it was a great experience at least to test myself about how I was feeling about the country and whether I would have done it or not. And the very honest answer, is yes, I would have done it.”

Arteta may not have ever pulled on the Three Lions jersey, but he has sought advice from one the nation’s most celebrated performers, Hollywood star and Arsenal fan Tom Hiddleston, who interviewed him for the club’s website shortly after the title triumph in May.

“I’m always fascinated to learn from other industries, and because there is no element of competition, we can be fully transparent about our jobs and learn from each other,” Arteta adds.

“I was fascinated to hear from Tom about how a set is put together and how he goes about the process of soaking up the character he is playing and becoming someone else and then delivering that performance in a way that emotionally connects with his audience. 

“I loved hearing about how all the elements surround him, the scripts, the design, the costumes, come together to connect with his audience. Like some chefs that I’ve also spoken to I’ve found that there are a lot of similarities in our businesses, but no, I don’t have any Hollywood ambitions.”

Unlike Arteta’s wife of sixteen years, Argentina born former Miss World finalist and actress Lorena Bernal, who has appeared in .

The couple met in a San Sebastian nightclub in 2002 and now share three sons, 17-year-old Arsenal youth player Gabriel, 14-year-old Daniel, and Oliver, 11.

“Lorena and my family are the foundation of everything,” says Arteta, who lives in a £7.5 million, six-bedroom mansion in north London.

“If you are able to create the right environment with your family, you can create anything that you want with your life. Without that, I don’t think it’s possible. 

“I feel extremely grateful and proud of what we have created. From my side, being able to without any restriction fulfil a dream and a passion that I have, but from their side as well, to make sure that they are looked after and they have in their lives the importance and the credit that they deserve to be able to do what they want to do.”

The future for Arteta, regardless of the sanctions eventually prescribed to rivals Manchester City, is, he hopes, more of the same.

“I want to go through those emotions that we had in May many, many, many more times in my career and I want to do it not only by winning, but by winning in a certain way and with the people that I want beside me.

“And that winning mentality, that winning DNA, has to be something that you build every day and that you make part of the culture. 

“And that means having everyone on board, the players, the staff, the owner, the board, the fans in the stadium. You all need to all feel and breathe that every day.”

As for Arteta’s Bupa test results, they revealed that he has an increased genetic risk of coeliac disease and lactose intolerance, but no current predisposition to anything more life-threatening.

“People ask, ‘weren’t you worried that it might reveal something more serious?’ but, no, I wasn’t scared,” he said.

“I was 100 per cent convinced I wanted to know, because that way I can make conscious decisions, and I can be on top of everything, which I love to do. What I took from it, is, ‘now I have this information, what can I do better?’

So, any advice for the faltering team in white at the other end of the Seven Sisters Road?

“I can’t help you with that, I’m afraid,” he says breaking into a broad grin. “I’ve got enough in my own garden, thank you.”

Mikel Arteta is supporting Bupa’s What You’re Made of Campaign