Pat Rice wanted to leave last summer
But Arsenal paid Pat a shedload of cash to stay.
Now the veteran No.2 is leaving and the obvious replacement is Steve Bould, who runs the Academy team.
Bould has, of course, coached Szczesny, Gibbs, Frimpong and all the younger players. Gibbs loves Bouldy and says he’s learned a lot from him.
The thing about Bould is that he doesn’t want to manage. He earns a million and runs his own show, playing football on the Wenger model, of course.
He wants to be a coach, not a manager.
In his most recent interview on Arsenal.com, Bouldy told Lambros Lambrou that, “I enjoy what I do. I get massive satisfaction from seeing players improve and make careers out of the game.
“The ultimate is seeing players we have worked for running out of the tunnel playing for our first team.
“I honestly feel I have the best job in the world. Doing what I love, with the facilities and footballing philosophy we have at this club, I have a fantastic job.â€
The sport today is very different from football when he played, so Steve has had to adapt what he teaches to his teenagers.
He said, “I believe that for every sport every seven or so years they become almost revolutionised in that they become, faster, more powerful, more technical than before and football is even more different. In our game, we also have the rule changes. I could not tell you what the offside rule is now.
“You could not step up with your arm out and scream offside like we used to. That is not an area you can really coach any more. Also, you cannot get away with going to ground or any real aggressive tackling the way we used to nowadays. So, while there are some principles that persist, passing on what I used to do as a player has to be adapted to the modern game.â€
Early in the season his team were good when they had the ball but needed to be feistier when defending from the front.
“Over Christmas, I looked at the way that our Under-18s were playing and I felt that we were fine when we had the ball, but poor when we didn\’t have it. We used to sit back and let opposing teams play.
“Since we came back in January we have had a bigger emphasis on winning the ball back and closing opponents down quickly and that has improved us immensely, even with the ball. The players are seeing the benefits of that improvement and are now more confident and enjoying the game more too. Ultimately, if it is good enough for Barcelona and Messi, it is good enough for our lads too.â€
If Steve Bould replaced Pat Rice, how much coaching would Wenger let him do?
As we’ve seen for the last decade, the Professor is a control-freak who hates to delegate.
Wenger was extremely touchy when a journalist attempted to give Martin Keown any credit for the superb sequence of clean sheets that took Arsenal to Paris.
Very sad to see a gifted leader decline like that.
Wenger was a big man for eight or nine years but he’s got smaller since the new stadium opened. The club has outgrown him and the board.
As I understand it, Wenger uses Pat Rice as a shield, a shock absorber, someone who soaks up all the daily hassles, aggro and disputes among the players.
And then Pat says, “Right, lads, the boss is here now. He’s gonna tell us what we’re doing today.”
Myself, I don’t think Pat’s job would suit Steve Bould.
We’ll see. We shall have to wait and see what happens.
Maybe Bouldy will stay as Academy Coach until the next manager comes.
Then become his No.2.