Tony Adams turns Arsenal down!
It hasn’t been widely reported in the news but you may have heard that Gunners legend Tony Adams has followed in Thierry Henry’s footsteps by rejecting Arsenal’s approach of a coaching role at the club.
Thierry Henry famously turned down Arsenal’s offer a few weeks back to coach the Arsenal youth set up, but was in favour of staying with SkySports as a football pundit instead. Many fans vented their disappointment and frustration at Henry, however it seems that perhaps it’s Arsene Wenger and the club officials who are not making the role all too attractive. Adams supposedly joined up with Arsenal in order to work alongside Henry, but following on from the Frenchman’s resignation from his role with the Gunners, Adams has also left the set up.
The Daily Telegraph has reported that Adams was offered the Under 18’s managerial role after Henry’s rejection, but he has chosen to leave the club in favour of a move to China. The telegraph state: “Adams travelled to China for talks with Chongqing this week and it is understood the former Arsenal captain will become the club’s head of youth development on a lucrative contract.”
Adams therefore joins Henry, Bergkamp, Arteta and Vieira in choosing to progress their life after football away from Arsenal and join a coaching set up elsewhere across the footballing world. Adams hasn’t been a major success in management since retiring from professional football and has had failed attempts at Wycombe Wanderers, Portsmouth and Azerbaijan side Gabala, so perhaps it’s a good thing he didn’t join up with Arsenal.
I still hope that one day we might see Arsenal legends leading the line as coaches at the club in the not too distant future, but for now we will have to see how our legends fair elsewhere. But who should Arsenal turn to next to pass on their experiences to the Gunners youngsters?
By AH
Excellent, another one of my Arsenal Hero’s displays dignity, putting their love for the club and their own personal pride over money and short term nepotism.
EDIT: I must learn to use exclamation marks !!!!
Sure, it is nice to have club legends around to inspire young players but…….
From a purely coaching standpoint they are not necessary. Some former players become good coaches while others do not. It is not axiomatic that a great player will automatically be a great coach.
It could be that Henry and Adams had good reasons for turning down the job. Sometimes, however, former players/celebrities turn down jobs because they realize that the job involves much hard work for much less money, recognition and media attention than they would like.
You decide.
Clearly money in both cases was the ONLY motivation
Something is fundamentally wrong somewhere AFC, we think we know, we think it’s all about buying players and all but I tell you, it’s much more than that…if our legends are turning us down now, does that mean Henry [the player] wouldn’t sign for us if the hands of the clock were turned back?
What are you talking about? Henry was largely unproven before his arrival at Arsenal. It wasn’t exactly an already world-class, no-brainer signing..
Zlatan did all those years back as a teenager, didn’t he?
I think ‘lucrative contract’ is a big statement here… I highly doubt anyone could claim he’s moving to China for pure footballing reasons!!
One thing a lot of people fail to accept is that Wenger has been in charge of Arsenal for soooooo long!! This idea that brilliant players are always brilliant coaches is not always an automatic transition. He’s had 20+ years to compile staff behind him that he trusts…
But the way people just blatantly disregard Henry’s heavy involvement with Sky on the weekends is dumbfounding. Coaching youth squads is a big responsibility.. Why would you go for the candidate with half the availability when there’s people out there with loads more experience who can give their all?
Full time, full responsibility, but “little” money. Don’t fit for Arsenal “legends”, aren’t they?. In Adams case, let alone the money, he might be thought that being U-18 is too low for his recent curriculum vitae. He was managed Wycombe and assistant manager at Portsmouth. No wonder, in state of coaching Arsenal kids, he choose to explore the China Super League for bigger money, and you have to admit this, bigger challenge. I mean, U18 competitions vs China Super League?
The explanations are straight forward for the recent ones.
Henry: Chose money over AFC, and if his coaching is anything like his analysis and punditry we haven’t missed much.
Adams: Chose money over AFC, I was relieved when he chose China, the blokes failed in every coaching role he’s had.
Arteta: The one we really missed out on. No role available at the time, so he went to City, shortly after that, Henry left and he could have been offered the U18s’ role vacated by Henry.
The other two, Bergkamp and Vierra are too long ago to worry about.
To be honest, in this day and age there is no loyalty whatsoever in football, so once a player leaves Arsenal, I really couldn’t give a stuff what they do.
Its not only legends that are turning us down but players we are trying to sign (Vardy, Cavani)
If Leicester give enough Money to Mahrez, he may turn us down to stay at Leicester.
We may not be as attractive to players as we once were
Lyon publicly turned us down yesterday for Lacazette. This is bad news for us.
Quality strikers out there are few and Mandzukic, Yedder are simply not good enough.
Also a warning!
If we don’t sign good enough players this summer to help our team we may lose the following players next summer: Alexis, Ozil and Bellerin
If that happens then the consequences for the next few years will be dire as they are huge part of our team.
We paid £35 million for Xhaka who looks really good but he wasn’t a priority and more of a luxury really as we have Cazorla, Coquelin, Eleney, Wilshere, Ramsey. So it doesn’t look like Kroenke is not stopping funds from flowing outwards. If we get a top striker and CB, then the Xhaka signing will be wonderful though as he looks really good. If we don’t sign any, have a poor season and lose Ozil/Alexis/Bellerin, then there is only one man to blame and his first name isn’t Stan
You are a bit wrong there Girl.
CDM was one of our top priority and big issue last year. The axis of Coquelin and Cazorla didn’t have equal back up. Once their injured we were done in ball transitions and first defense. Ramsey was awful, Flamini and Arteta out class aging, and Jack where the hell are you? We bought Elneny then, but clearly he wasn’t enough. That was another reason why we were fallen short, beside that low conversion rate from strikers. So, my opinion, Granit Xhaka presence is the fulfill of our CDM needs. If he please to learn from Cazorla, he also might become a better deep laying play maker.
Vertonghen and Aubamayang!