Opinion
Mikel Arteta’s appointment as Arsenal manager has continued the recent trend of top clubs picking up ex-players or club legends as managers.
Nowadays top clubs seem to pick inexperienced club legends instead of established managers. Sometimes the board gets it right. On other occasions the board gets it very, very wrong.
This trend has become increasingly popular in the Premier League, with struggling and wayward giants employing managers with little or no coaching experience. The rise of this trend began when Manchester United sacked Jose Mourinho after he fell out with the players last season. Instead of hunting for a top-drawer manager, United decided to give Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the job until the end of the season before giving him the job permanently following his side’s miraculous win against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.
His only experience as a manager? Working for United’s youth team, a relegation with Cardiff and a few seasons during which he turned Molde into a powerhouse in Norway.
While Solskjaer managed to get performances, results and morale up for the first three months of his stint, the lack of quality within the squad and his own inexperience showed, with the club languishing outside the Europa League spots.
(Martin Rickett/PA via AP)
It’s not happening just at United either. Chelsea appointed prodigal son Frank Lampard as manager after Maurizio Sarri’s departure to manage Juventus. Lampard’s only experience before getting the job was a single season with Derby County, where he admittedly got them to the Championship play-off final.
Following a (now reduced) transfer ban, Lampard had to use the youth to try and get Chelsea performing at a top level. It’s he’s worked, with Chelsea currently in fourth on the Premier League table and in the last 16 of the Champions League.
Of course Barcelona was doing this long before it was trendy when they appointed ex-captain and then manager of the club’s B team to replace Frank Rijkaard. In came a certain Pep Guardiola. This decision paid dividends, as Guardiola won the treble in his first season, a first in Spanish football. His Barcelona side is now lauded as one of the greatest of all time, and Guardiola subsequently left and swept the Bundesliga and Premier League respectively with Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
Guardiola’s protege at City, Arteta, was recently picked up by Arsenal to replace Unai Emery despite having no managerial experience and his only coaching tenure coming from three years as Pep’s assistant manager.
A little bit closer to home, Sydney FC picked up on this trend. Graham Arnold had left the club to manage Australia and the Sky Blues were looking for someone to succeed their greatest ever coach. Step forward Steve Corica, Arnold’s assistant.
In his first season Corica came second behind Tony Popovic’s all-conquering Perth and won the championship on penalties against the Glory. In his second season Corica has invested heavily in Alexander Baumjohann, Ryan McGowan and Kosta Barbarouses, and it’s paid off, with Sydney currently six points clear of second-placed Melbourne City at the summit of the A-League ladder.
At its best the idea of bringing in a club legend to manage your side can reap rewards. They know the club and what it means to the fans and they have an idea as to how the club should move forward both on the field and off it.
But at its worst an inexperienced manager who was brought in based on the premise that they used to play for the club can drag a side down the table and demoralise both the fans and the players.
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