TIM HOWARD: I played 152 games with Mikel Arteta… the manager leading Arsenal vs. Manchester City is not my friend. He has changed. He is no longer the teacher’s pet with special privileges – and that’s a good thing

There are only certain Premier League managers – such as David Moyes at Everton, Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, and Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool – who have really taken hold of a club and made it their own.

They walked in said: ‘Anything I say, goes. I run this entire club – from what the players eat and drink, to how they play.’

The special thing about Mikel Arteta is that he had done that after only two years at Arsenal. He got rid of players and he said: ‘This is going to be the way it is.’ He built that culture, he is the figurehead, and he managed all that in a very short space of time.

I played 152 games alongside Mikel at Everton – only Phil Neville and Leon Osman played more with him during his entire career.

I have interviewed him a few times as a manager and every time, before the cameras start rolling, it has just been like the old days: he calls me Timmy, there’s a lot of smiling and giggling. It’s all very casual. It’s the Mikel I shared a dressing room with.

But then the interview starts, he goes into game-mode and he has to be the person that he wants to portray. That’s not my friend. That Mikel the manager. He has changed.

When I first got to Everton, he was one of Moyes’ Crown Jewels. He was far and away our best footballer. He was a really good guy and a really engaging guy. But Mikel was always somebody who took soccer very, very seriously. There was never an off day.

He was meticulous in the dressing room, in the canteen, and on the bus. He was always studying film or talking tactics. He was someone to look up to, to mirror your lifestyle on.

A lot of players aren’t that bothered – they just get on the bus or the plane or the train and they fall asleep. I was always lost in my own world: headphones on, listening to music or watching a movie, maybe having a conversation with the guys around my table. I wasn’t studying film!

We would have team meetings, looking at tape and breaking down tactics. The manager would be in there but Mikel was always a major voice in the room – talking to other players, showing them even: ‘We have to play here, you have to find the pass here’. He wasn’t afraid to say: ‘I see this, and this is how we need to do things.’ He never clashed with Moyes. It was just a matter of getting certain players on the same page.

He didn’t have to give you a dressing down. He was very stern and he would say to you: ‘Timmy, it’s not good enough.’ And I never had to pop back at him. Because this guy walks the line. When he says it’s not good enough, I have to look in the mirror and realize: he’s right. And there were plenty of those days!

In fact, Moyes made sure that he heaped a ton of responsibility on Mikel – to lead the team and direct us tactically. He wanted the responsibility and he was able to shoulder it. He was Moyes’ midfield general, his tactician, his little technical genius. The gaffer loved him. He could do no wrong in Moyes’ eyes.

But he brought it every day: he was always training, he was always fit. So Mikel got special privileges when it came to going back to Barcelona to see a physio, or bringing his physio in.

That’s normal: the best players get more leniency, because they’re constantly producing for the manager.

Mikel was a teacher’s pet but he was definitely one of the boys as well. Not many players manage that – normally you’re either on one side of the line or the other. He was a special player and a special person.

Mikel is different now. He has changed… but I think in a very good way. As a manager, you have to figure out what your voice is going to be and how you want to project yourself.

These days, he’s quite closed off and he doesn’t give away a lot of secrets. That is not a surprise – he’s been schooled under Pep at Manchester City.

When you look at who he’s become as a manager, he absolutely has a sprinkle of Moyes, too.

Mikel had the guile, the tactical awareness and the magical feet. But David and his teams always had a steeliness – and he turned Mikel into a hard-nosed midfielder.

There are some things he didn’t learn at Everton, though. Blasting out You’ll Never Walk Alone during training, for one! But as a manager, you have to look deeper than you ever did as a player. You have to find little nuances to give your team an advantage. Soccer is ever evolving and you can’t be afraid of things that might hurt you or fail.

As long as the players in the dressing room buy into it, then no other opinions matter. And right now there’s a massive buy-in from that squad.

International injuries prove Fergie was thinking ahead

Perhaps this week proved once again that Sir Alex Ferguson was ahead of his time. John Stones, Kyle Walker, Manuel Akanji and Andy Robertson all picked up injuries on international duty.

Fergie identified early on the importance of missing big players down the stretch of a title race. But there were also a lot of myths around my former United boss – Fergie Time, for one. Forcing players to miss international soccer was another.

I’m sure there were times when someone conveniently ‘pulled a hamstring’ in training the day before an international break. But I never saw a player put under pressure to pull out. I wasn’t privy to that – not as a slightly naive young man in my early twenties, anyway.

I was certainly never asked to leave a US squad. Maybe I wasn’t that important!

Good on Louis Rees-Zammit for coming over from rugby and landing a deal with the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s nearly impossible to do – that’s why we see so few athletes making the switch. 

I have been in elite dressing rooms on both sides of the Atlantic and the two cultures have started to mirror one another.

But over here, we are still more upbeat and in-your-face. And over here, American athletes are not scrutinized in the way Premier League players are, or even rugby players at the highest level.

In the US, there is more freedom to express yourself. It’s a cultural thing: Americans want to stand out, Brits want to fall in line.

I lived that culture and I enjoyed it. But I think Rees-Zammit will thrive in this new environment. Back in the UK, it’s almost frowned upon to outwardly express yourself, whereas in America it’s celebrated. You are able to be yourself and if you take that on to the field, everything snowballs from there.