Mikel Arteta has revealed that he deliberately sabotaged Arsenal’s match preparations during pre-season by causing travel delays, interfering with meals and turning up the temperature in the dressing room.

The Arsenal manager is known for his use of alternative methods to test his players and his approach this summer was to ensure they were capable of “adapting to different contexts” over the course of the season.

Arsenal faced significant flight delays earlier this week before their trip to Italy to play Napoli in the Champions League, and Arteta said he “loves” those challenges.

“I try to create them in pre-season,” he said. “So when they happen, we have already experienced them and we already know. Get to the stadium very late, change the routine as soon as the players have to do something else.

“Because when it happens, and it can happen – you can miss the flight, the train can be delayed, there’s so much traffic – I don’t want the players, but not only the players, the staff as well, panicking.

“So, when that happens, adapt to it. OK, we have another two or three hours on the plane, how can we use them? Play together, spend some time together, sleep, use it, but certainly don’t complain and then use it as an excuse because that’s not helpful at all.”

Asked what he did in pre-season to prepare for these potential challenges, Arteta said: “Delaying the meals, delaying the transport, taking a different route. We’ve done many things: made the dressing room hotter, more difficult, more challenging, less beds [massage tables].

“Those kind of things, because we’re going to have to adapt to different contexts, and we’ll try to anticipate it and create the best possible conditions. But when there is not that element of surprise or stress on match day, I think it’s important.”

Unconventional drills have been a constant theme of Arteta’s time as Arsenal manager. He once played Liverpool’s You’ll Never Walk Alone anthem on the training pitches before a trip to Anfield and Arsenal’s coaches regularly blare out dance music through speakers in warm-ups.

Last season Arteta also ran a training drill in which four players were connected by marker pens as they dribbled a ball downfield.

Meanwhile, Arteta has said he was surprised to hear that Gabriel Jesus had complained about his treatment in his final weeks at Arsenal before his move to Barcelona.

Jesus said “no one told me nothing” and complained that he was made to train away from the first-team group before he secured his move to Spain.

Asked about those comments, Arteta said: “Very surprised, to be fair. Especially because with Gabi, I had an individual talk in the dressing room.

“I don’t know what words were said [by Jesus], it’s fine. The words that we used for each other, it was all about gratitude. It’s OK. Sometimes I understand that when you have to deliver bad news or news that people don’t expect, those things are reactive. Somebody has to be there to be bad cop. If I have to be, I have to be and I understand.”

Arteta cited the example of Leandro Trossard, who left for Besiktas earlier this summer but returned to watch the Chelsea game last weekend, as evidence of the relationship remaining strong with former players.

“What’s important is normally what happens three months later, six months later, when Trossard comes in, he’s in the dressing room with all of us, the atmosphere and the relationship you have, and thanks God so far, with all the players that left, at some point their relationship has been really good. I hope that’s the same case,” Arteta said.