What do we think about him as a potential successor to Wenger? I first started seriously considering this possibility after he worked us in the Champions League R16. This was another impressive performance and comes on the heels of him really taking it to Emery and PSG not long ago.
The negative is that he has never managed a big club and never actually won anything. But all his teams seem to outperform their talent and he has consistently been very good at bringing through young players and actually improving them. He took a 46 point Braga club and won 64 points in 11-12. The next season he took a 7th placed Sporting team and finished 2nd. At Monaco, he took a team that had just sold James and Falcao and still finished 3rd in 14-15 while also making the CL quarters (and pushing a very good Juve to the limit in that round). Then he took the same after selling Martial, Ferreira-Carrasco, Abennour, Kurzawa, Kondogbia, and Berbatov and finished 3rd again in 15-16 anyway and is now looking poised to give PSG a real challenge in the league. Ligue 1 is pretty poor but he has really done a pretty amazing job when considering the player turnover he has to deal with. And when he has had matchups with clubs led by well-regarded managers - Wenger, Pochettino, Emery, Allegri - he has more than held his own.
This is probably all moot as Wenger will hang on, infuriating everybody. But if he does retire after this year, I think we could do a lot worse than Jardim. He seems ripe for a move and we would likely be the most attractive available job next summer.
We could do worse, though I’m not keen on his boring Monaco side and despite their turnover of players they still have and manage to recruit more talent than anyone but PSG & maybe Lyon could dream of. Think they’ve got some sort of relationship with Jorge Mendes, they’ve had quite a few of his players in recent times (said it before but Silva should be a target of ours).
Tuchel & Sarri are two at the top of my wish list at the moment of gettable targets.
Tuchel is a name that keeps popping up. Personally I’m not convinced he has the ability to take Arsenal forward or that he’d been a good choice for us.
Allegri is certainly not an option for me. I’ve never really been a fan of his methods, general attitude, tactics or man management. Definitely does not have it in him to move the club forward. Don’t know enough about Sarri or Jardim to comment. Although Jardim’s tactics do seem overly defensive for my liking. I’m very wary of Italian managers tbh
Koeman and particularly Rafa Benitez seems like the most sensible options to me. Rafa has the experience, personality and material method to build on Wenger.
Maurizio Sarri doesn’t speak a single word of english, is a good guy, a typical tuscan guy (with his strengths and weaknesses) but for a foreign club, especially in England, especially Arsenal, is not good enough.
It’s not going to be that difficult a job for whomever we bring in. Wenger just makes it look hard because he is clueless and well well past it. Kind of like a senior citizen holding on to that driver’s license until you pry it out of their cold, dead hand.
Tuchel is high on my list, although I’m not sure whether he would leave BvB after only two years. Sarri I’m not fully convinced about, despite his Napoli teams looking pretty good. I would prefer a younger manager who has had more exposure to European competition.
I’ll be interested to see how Monaco plays this year. Jardim’s teams in Portugal were fairly high scoring. His squads the last two years at Monaco have definitely reflected a defense-first mentality but I think part of that has been a pragmatic response to such high squad turnover. For the first time this year he has the same team for a second year in a row that hasn’t sold off its core. So it will be interesting to see whether he opens things up a bit. It is obviously very early days but through four matches Monaco have scored more goals in Ligue 1 than anybody else.
Bollocks.
Take the consistency Wenger has provided for granted, at your own risk.
Liverpool, United, Chelsea, have all finished outside Top 4 multiple times in last decade; even City could have ended outside Top 4 last season.
There is a good chance that the replacement could do a Liverpool, have us finish outside Top 4; while the likes of Tottenham capitalize & never let us in again.
are you joking?
