Who should replace Arsène Wenger? Part 6— Leonardo Jardim and Ralph Hasenhüttl

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 five parts. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.

Leonardo Jardim

Jardim is currently managing AS Monaco in Ligue 1. Last year they had an amazing season and broke the deadlock of PSG dominance. They finished the season with 95 points, scoring 107 goals. He is Portuguese and 43 years old.

He’s been at Monaco for four years. From 2013 onwards you can a clear trend of improvement of the clubs he’s managed. Monaco in the 16/17 season saw astronomical growth. He saw a decline this year, but I think this was due to the fire sale of their young talent in the summer. And the strengthening of PSG to dominate the league further. It was also a regression to the mean as his side’s conversion rate was unsustainably high when in 2016/17.

Jardim therefore meets the first benchmark of improving teams. And he also meets the need for development of youth. Below you can see the squad he played with in his title winning season. It was a ridiculously young side with amazing talents. Most of which have moved on to huge European clubs.

It’s easy to see the improvement of AS Monaco during his reign. And this is due to taking advantage of the players he had at his disposal and improving the young talents. They left and were difficult to replace.

His Monaco side were free scoring and exciting to watch. They used very advanced full backs and wingers that liked to come narrower and goals came from all over the pitch.

Jardim is capable of using and developing youth to win titles. He plays attacking football and improved the sides he’s been at. He is young but has good experience. Therefore, he seems a very suitable option.

Ralph Hasenhüttl

Hasenhüttl is a 50 year old Austrian coach, who is currently managing RB Leipzig. They currently sit in 6th place in the Bundesliga and finished 2nd last year. RB Leipzig aren’t that popular a team due to their history but have become a big force in the Bundesliga.

Hasenhüttl has an impressive ELO graph. Since 2012 there is a clear trend of growth. There has been no serious decline. His beginning at RB Leipzig looks ridiculous as they finished 2nd in their first Bundesliga season. This growth wasn’t sustainable, but didn’t drop and levelled out. His time at Ingolstadt was very impressive also.

He has a good track record of improving teams and that makes him a very promising option for Arsenal in their current situation.

He plays with intense high pressing, employs a good counter press and used a lot of route one play. The counter press is then used to regain the long balls that are lost.

Timo Werner has been great under Hasenhüttl and uses his pace to utilise the long balls to get in behind the defence with great speed. This is a role that Aubameyang would be very capable of completing at Arsenal.

RB Leipzig play very intensely and Hasenhüttl gets players to work hard and gets the best out of them. They utilise long balls, but do not mistake this for a defensive low block style used teams like Burnely.

Overall, Hasenhüttl is a very strong contender for the Arsenal role due to his meeting of the two benchmarks discussed above. Alongside this he is also comfortable using young players. His Leipzig side contains young players that have have outstanding seasons, such as Werner, Keita and Upamecano.

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