West Ham United goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski says he could sense former Arsenal teammate Mikel Arteta moving from a player to a manager long before he took the Gunners job.

The Hammers meet Arsenal later today.

Fabianski recalled to whufc.com: "I remember Mikel Arteta when he came as a player for the first time to Arsenal and I remember that a lot of the boys at the time were very impressed with his leadership qualities.

"From the very first day, he tried to be not only like a good player on the pitch, but at the same time, be an important voice in a in a changing room. So, it looks like it was already there, something that he was going to carry on into his managerial role. He has been a great player, but at the same time, you could see the leadership skills that are here today.

"Thomas Vermaelen was the Club captain, but he suffered with injuries so he didn't play that many games, so then the on-the-pitch captain was Mikel, and then after some time he took over as Club captain as well.

"It was nine or ten years ago, so it's hard to say if I knew he would become a manager because so much can happen in ten years. However, I remember Mikel was doing his coaching budgets with the Welsh FA so when I was at Swansea, the group of coaches that was doing the coaching badges came over to the Swansea City training ground so I met him over there as well.

"But it was funny because it was a bit of already like this different kind of conversation, like I could sense that I wasn't speaking with Mikel the player, and that I was like probably already talking with the Mikel the manager.

"I could sense the slight difference so I think, when you transition from the player to the manager, I think it's important that in some way you have to kind of cut off the way you were as a as a player and you have to start to build up like the defences that you need for being a manager. So I think that I could sense a little bit of this happening when I met Mikel when I was at Swansea."