Arsenal have confirmed that Freddie Ljungberg has rejoined the the club’s Academy as coach of the under-23s.
The 41-year-old Swede, winner of two league titles and three FA Cups during a nine year playing career as a Gunner, previously coached the club’s under-15s and was an assistant to the under-19s during the 2016/17 season.
He left London in February 2017 to follow Andries Jonker to the Bundesliga as an assistant coach at Wolfsburg. The move didn’t work out so well with our Dutch former Academy coach sacked after six months.
Speaking about his return to Arsenal, Freddie said: “I’m delighted to be returning to the club
“Arsenal has always been a special place for me and I’m really excited at this opportunity to work with our under-23 team.
“I look forward to working with the talented young players we have at the club. I know many of them well and will work hard to help them continue developing and become the best players and people they can be.”
In May, it was reported that Steve Gatting and Carl Laraman, coach and assistant coach of the under-23s, were suspected pending an investigation into alleged bullying.
The results of this investigation are yet to be made public, but given Freddie has taken Gatting’s role it does lead to one obvious conclusion. To add to that, Gatting’s page on the official website is currently unavailable.
Freddie joins a raft of new appointments to work alongside Per Mertesacker at London Colney. The other day the club confirmed the arrival of Marcel Lucassen as head of coach and player development and Lee Heron as head of Academy football operations.
Welcome back Freddie.
A legend returns! Good luck Freddie!
And that FA Cup Final goal, he was stronger than Terry…
…the cunt.
(Just finishing your sentence for you).
Fuckin’ excellent
I wish Pires was more interested in coaching roles at the Academy instead of just freeloading at the first team training. He was a genius at the game, and I am sure he could have contributed more behind the scenes instead of pretending to be a ‘medium’ between AW and the players.
To be fair, if you read his interview on Arseblog that’s exactly what he says his aims are. Just feels he isn’t ready to go straight into the coaching badges yet.
He’s Arsenal through and through
Yes! Gonna be a great influence for the boys.