Tottenham Wants Arsenal’s Arteta to Join Coaching Staff
Players rarely switch from Tottenham to Arsenal and vice versa, but it appears that Spurs are willing to shake things up by acquiring Mikel Arteta to join Mauricio Pochettino’s staff for next season.
According to the Telegraph’s Matt Law, Tottenham are looking at Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta to join Mauricio Pochettino’s coaching staff after this season ends. Although it highly depends on the Spanish midfielder wanting to hang his cleats up or not. Something that he’s still unsure of for the time being.
Because both Arsenal and Tottenham share so much animosity towards one another it’s quite difficult to envision a scenario where the Gunners’ captain could simply make the short journey across north London and become a coach next season.
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Then again, because Arsène Wenger has held simple conversations with the Spanish midfielder only, Arsenal has no current plans on what to do with the 34-year-old. Making them below their rivals in Spurs and even Manchester City with Pep Guardiola coming in, in wanting the player to become a coach next year.
Assuming that Mikel Arteta does take up a coaching job — with Tottenham or Man City — there’s no position that has been brought up yet from the linked article above.
But by simply deducing Arteta’s position as a midfielder, it wouldn’t be surprising that he would be a midfielder coach on either Pochettino or Guardiola’s staff.
Which team that Mikel Arteta joins would be tough but by default, an Arsenal player swapping red for Lilywhite is pretty much a sin in north London. And perhaps that’s something that the 34-year-old wouldn’t want to deal with to begin his coaching career, or even a player-coach role if he wants to continue playing.
The last player to make such a controversial move was William Gallas in 2010 after he swapped Arsenal for Tottenham. Since then, no other moves have been made by either club to take up one of their former players.
If Arteta did in fact take up Mauricio Pochettino’s offer to join his staff, and because the Spanish midfielder has been highly regarded at Arsenal and numerous football figures, it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect Mikel Arteta to successfully transition to the sidelines once his playing career is over.
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Essentially this would be a coup of a signing for Spurs, something that the 34-year-old might not be against when both Arteta and Pochettino played together with Paris Saint-Germain.
At one point Mauricio Pochettino was a “footballing father” to a young Mikel Arteta, which is obviously very high praise for anyone.
Now here’s the Argentine manager chiming in on the subject matter.
“I love him and he loves me. You know our history from Paris Saint-Germain, when he was 17 and I was the captain.”
“We have a very good relationship, but I never speak about rumours.”
While Mauricio Pochettino already has a solid staff as is, getting a player like Mikel Arteta to join would not only weaken Arsenal by losing another key member who could have eventually joined Arsene Wenger’s coaching staff (Patrick Vieira) but Tottenham can get another highly regarded footballing mind.
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Having Arteta join a team that already boasts Pochettino as manager, Toni Jiménez as goalkeeping coach, Paul Mitchell as head of recruitment (spotting talent, analyst and offering input) and John McDermott as the head of coaching and development and overseeing every age group level below the first team, makes Tottenham a good destination for attracting talented footballers and good coaches to join.