Who should replace Arsène Wenger? Part 1 — Introduction
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.
The question now is who will replace him? It’s a difficult job. It is not easy to replace a manager who has been there for so long, look at Manchester United since Ferguson’s retirement. Many people are predicting the whoever takes over won’t last long. Meaning Arsenal will join almost every other club that cycles managers every few seasons.
Obviously, the media is covered in stories linking managers to Arsenal, including this article.
Here is the list of managers who are favourites to join Arsenal in summer.
What do Arsenal need?
Young Talent
As outlined by Mohamed last week in his article about Arsenal’s youth, Wenger failed to taking enough chances on players aged 18–22 since about 2014.
Combining this with an age utility graph from this season, you can see a clear lack of youth and a few ageing players getting a lot of minutes. So, you can say that Arsenal need a manager who can bring through youth, use young players in the first team and recruit young talent. This is the first criterion. It’s worth remembering also that Arsenal have a Head of Recruitment so they manager is unlikely to have a lot of control over transfers.
Upcoming Coaches
Secondly, I would assume that because Arsenal have had the same manager for 22 years, they would prefer to have another long term manager who they put faith in. And therefore, possibly take a risk.
They could also want a experienced manager to come in and steer the ship, like Hiddink at Chelsea. But, I think they’re better off going for a young manager, with good experience that can be at the club for a long time. It is very unlikely that they can finish worse in the league next year than this season. So, there is little to risk. Unless, they win the Europa League and qualify for the Champions League.
It depends on the priorities of the board. But, for the sake of the article, I’m going to say the manager can’t be older than 50 as the second criterion.
Improvement and Growth
My third criteria for the search is that they’ve have historically improved the teams they’ve managed and managed to a good level. I think this is important for Arsenal, a team who has declined significantly and now struggles to qualify for the Champions League.
Arsenal are at one of their lowest points of this century. This season and last have been the only time Wenger has failed to finish in the top four in the Premier League.
The current Arsenal squad is ageing and pretty weak. It needs improvement and growth to put Arsenal back in the Champions League and try to compete with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. That’s why as a benchmark I decided that managers needed to have history of improving the clubs they’re at.
Attractive Football
The final thing for the manager, is to play attractive football. Arsène Wenger has always played attacking, passing football and I think that the board will want to continue this. Wenger is often referred to as a pioneer and brought attacking football to England.
The criteria for a new manager:
- Promote and play young players
- Be younger than 50
- Historically improved teams
- Play attractive football
In part 2, I’ll be looking at which managers Arsenal should consider as their long term manager, not a ‘steadier of the ship’. Finding the manager who best fits these criteria. This is going to a fairly methodic, simple way to eliminate managers and shortlist the coaches I think would be best.
