Who should replace Arsène Wenger? Part 5 — Paulo Fonseca, Domenico Tedesco and Julian Nagelsmann

On April 20th 2018, Arsène Wenger announced that this would be his last season as Arsenal manager, after 22 years at the club. It was a pretty emotional day and football fans and players emerged to give respect and gratitude to the manager.

Make sure you’ve read the first four parts. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

Paulo Fonseca

Fonseca is 45 and the Portuguese manager of Shakhtar Donetsk. His Shakhtar team has caught the eye of many football fans and hipsters. He is being heavily linked to Everton this summer but if Arsenal came asking, surely he’d choose them.

I’m instantly skeptical of Fonseca looking at the ELO of teams he’s managed. There is no real trend of growth and lacks evidence improving teams. He had an unsuccessful, short stint at Porto, which may have come too early.

He improved Paços a lot in his first spell there, but this is a small sample where many thought they overperformed. Shakhtar have been an impressive side and beat Manchester City in the Champions League group stage. But, in the two seasons Fonseca has spent in Ukraine the side hasn’t really improved, the same thing happened in his season at Braga.

Maybe he hasn’t had the resources and time to drastically improve the team. It’s not the greatest sample size, but it hasn’t really convinced me. This could be the wrong decision as I do quite like him as an option, but I have to be strict to the criteria I set. And therefore, I’m ruling him out.

Domenico Tedesco

Tedesco is currently the head coach at Schalke, who are sat second the Bundesliga. Tedesco is just 32 and have a very successful season. He’s a very exciting young manager that is becoming a household name.

At 32 he is the sort of manager that could be a great long term option and build a legacy. But, I’m ready to rule out Tedesco pretty early. I think that he hasn’t get enough experience to take on Arsenal right now, or for me to properly judge him. He’s only managed 41 matches at the moment and I’d rather see him progress at Schalke before making a big move.

Julian Nagelsmann

Nagelsmann has gained a lot of spotlight since becoming the youngest manager in the Bundesliga aged 28. He’s now 30. His Hoffenheim side had an outstanding season last year and were a great team to watch. However, it is a very similar situation to Tedesco where I think he hasn’t got enough experience to be judged or given this big a role. He greatly improved Hoffenheim and qualified for the Champions League. However, this season saw them regress a bit and a decline in the season. They currently sit in 5th and have had another good season. But, their ELO has been less impressive, I think this may be due to their disappointing campaign in Europe.

Nagelsmann is being covered a lot by the media for his coaching techniques and is a really interesting coach. He will be a top manager but I’m going to have to rule him out for now.

Thanks for reading. Make sure you’re following me on Twitter.