A year ago, following his decision to sack Steve Bould, Arsenal academy manager Per Mertrsacker was faced with the task of finding a new U23s coach for the club.
Mertesacker now finds himself in the same situation after the man that he appointed, Kevin Betsy, was named as the new manager of Crawley Town.
Given that Betsy has taken Dan Micciche with him to Crawley, Arsenal will also be on the lookout for a new U18s coach. The main focus, though, will be on who is chosen to coach the older age group.
After a thorough search, Mertesacker struck gold last year when he identified Betsy as the best candidate to replace Bould.
Betsy is very much a modern coach and he helped Arsenal U23s to produce some impressive performances while playing out from the back. There was also frequent interchanging of positions and a lot of effective pressing.
It wasn’t all plain sailing as some players took time to adapt to Betsy’s rather complicated methods, but overall it worked very well and Arsenal U23s were a significantly more impressive team than they were in the previous campaign.
Betsy deserves the chance to coach in first-team football and it will be interesting to see how he fares at Crawley.
Now, though, Arsenal need to focus on who will replace him and ideally they need somebody with a similar philosophy who can get Arsenal’s talented crop of youngsters playing dynamic football.
Mehmet Ali has been working as Betsy’s assistant in recent months after joining from Reading and could be a candidate to step up.
Whoever is chosen, Arsenal will hope that they can have a similar impact to Betsy.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
Would love to see Jack Wilshere, Ljungberg or Bergkamp be given the chance with our youth teams
Why is this downvoted? I would love to have Ljungberg back!
If (big if) Ljungberg wants to return to the U23s role, I’d call off the search. He loves the club (and we love him), knows the set-up and he’s already proven to be a big success in the role.
he’d also be the right bloke to ‘soft-launch’ Jack into the assistant role.
Get in there Fredjack Wilberg!!
Or is that Jackie Ljunshire?
Betsy and Micciche out;
Wenger and Rice in.
that is oldschool
I am so done with all of the papers claiming our best players are leaving.
You really believe, what the papers say? Then show me Benzema in an Arsenal Jersey? The papers called that a 1000 times. Those comments about Saka exploit the fears we have for no reason, than people beeing afraid and wanting to know, what is happening, so they click on it.
Every club should have Saka on the radar, as we had Vlahovic on the radar for very good reason. Now a transfer happening is a whole nother story.
I agree with that. I don’t believe them – but I am totally done with them.
Our friendly cunts at the Daily Mirror have so far had our pursuit of Gabriel Jesus ‘hijacked’ by Tottenham, Chelsea and now Real Madrid.
Anyone but Arsenal. They hate to see us prosper. The tabloid twats.
He will come crawley’n back. They always do.
Are any of the fathers of Nunez, Jesus, Bellingham or Samacca football coaches?