Mikel Arteta has done it again.

Another press conference from the Arsenal manager, another insight into his weird and wonderful ways. Or just weird, depending on which way you look at it.

Arteta has been taking things to new extremes with his psychological schemes for Arsenal. He certainly knows how to think outside the box, we’ll give him that.

We’ve already heard about deploying pickpockets on his own players at a meal, or playing You’ll Never Walk Alone at full blast in preparation for a Liverpool match, or using a lightbulb in a team talk.

It’s meant to be motivational, but some of it comes across bizarre.

And it should come as no surprise that Arteta had a back story up his sleeve when reacting to Arsenal being affected by the Air Traffic Control issues ahead of them flying out to Italy for their Champions League game against Napoli.

Turns out this 4D chess player had already prepared for this exact scenario.

“I love those challenges. I tried to create them in pre-season!” revealed Arteta at his Friday press conference. Here we go again…

“So when they happen, we know how to experience them and we already know.

“Get to the stadium very late, change the routine so the players have to do something else. When it happens, and it can: the flight can be cancelled, or the train is delayed, there is so much traffic, I don’t want the players and staff panicking.

“When that happens, adapt to it. We have two or three hours on the plane – can we use it? Play together, spend some time together, sleep.

“But don’t complain or use it as an excuse because it’s not helpful at all.”

Asked to elaborate further on his summer schemes, because we might as well hear all about it now, Arteta replied: “Just delaying the meals, delaying the transport, taking a different route. We’ve done many things.

“Make the dressing room hotter, more difficult, more challenging, less [massage] beds. Those kinds of things because we’re going to have to adapt to different contexts. And we will try to anticipate this and adapt to difficult conditions.

“When there’s no element of surprise or stress on a matchday, I think it’s important.”

If you say so, Mikel.

His devotees among the Arsenal fanbase will lap it up. Rivals will respond in bafflement. There’s a fine line between genius and crazy, and it’s one that Arteta loves to walk along.

You do wonder how different the reaction to Arteta’s antics would be if it was, say, Liam Rosenior doing the same things. But then again, Arteta is starting to stack up the achievements to give credence to his methods.

And so we eagerly await/dread his next bright ideas. Now, where did he put that lightbulb?

READ MORE: Mikel Arteta’s first 250 Premier League games vs. Wenger, Ferguson, Mourinho, Guardiola & Klopp