There’s one key difference between Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola

For two years, Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola played at the same club. For four years, they were coaching colleagues. Now, they’re equals – at least in the fire of a title race in the Premier League.

Their educations have run parallel, a decade or so apart: La Masia upbringings, with genial gentlemen of the Premier League providing the spark for them to realise coaching was the life for them (Bobby Robson for Pep, Arsene Wenger for Mikel). Yet the differences are stark, with Guardiola leaving Barcelona on his terms; Mikel Arteta never getting to dictate his own path.

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