There has been plenty of former Arsenal players, true legends of North London, who have been spotted coaching and managing players amongst the Arsenal set up in recent years. The likes of Henry, Ljungberg and Adams have all been officially enrolled in positions at the club, whilst we’ve also seen the likes of Pires come back on the odd day to be amongst the side. But one player who says he is disappointed to have never been around the Arsenal setup since he left, is Gunners legend Patrick Vieira.
Vieira has been speaking to the media about his disappointment surrounding the fact he never got the chance to return to Arsenal in a professional capacity, after his footballing career was over. We have seen in recent months how the Thierry Henry saga has caused quite a stir regarding former players being employed by Arsenal as coaches and then being under Arsene Wenger’s helm, but it seems as if Vieira is disappointed to have never gotten the chance.
The New York City boss Vieira told L’Equipe: ‘I was a bit disappointed not to get a call at the end of my career. Arsene has the right to think you don’t deserve it, that you’re not ready. But I think there’s always a way to open doors. As a player I wanted to go as high as possible. Same now. My dream is to manage one of Europe’s biggest teams one day.’
Unless memory serves me wrong, I thought that Vieira was linked with an opportunity to join up with Arsenal upon retiring from the game. Albeit it may not have been in a coaching position but I thought the Frenchman was offered the chance to return to Arsenal, only for him to choose Manchester City as the first step in his post professional footballing career. Vieira who was at Manchester City at the time, announced his retirement from football in 2011. It wasn’t long after his announcement that he was then appointed a role within the City youth development ranks and he later went on to become the City reserves manager. Paddy held this position until 2015, where he was then officially unveiled as the new boss of MLS franchise New York City FC, who are also a partner to Manchester City.
So as I said, unless memory serves me wrong, I thought he did have a chance to return to Arsenal, but his quick decision to link up with the youth development at Manchester City has meant that Vieira’s coaching career has perhaps gone down a path that hasn’t taken him to his ideal dream destination.
By AH
After the Southampton game when I said Wenger has lame tactics I was thumbed down and called negative for not praising the team even though they performed poorly,I’ll maintain nothing will change with Arsene Wenger as our manager we’ll have high hopes and end up disappointed when the season ends!
Dee, sing a different song. We know all the words to this one.
Did you even read the article???
Herbdawg, you are correct, this article is nothing to do with arsen wengers tactics in recent games.
But Vieira said those things some few months back, Dee is talking about just something still very hot, last night’s match.. The lineup was shocking, the manager still rests his players, may be for the Carling cup match!! I don’t know
@AH, as you rightly state it was well documented that Arsenal had appeared to offer Viera some form of work after his football playing days were over. Was it Viera who stated he wanted to work for Arsenal in another capacity which was then reported by the media or was it just the media who reported it. I don’t believe Arsenal or Wenger ever came out and said they had officially offered Viera a post at the club. It’s a pity really because Viera is the one ex player who probably should have had a role within the club to take us forwards but then with the way Wenger likes to control everything maybe he felt that Viera was being too ambitious to quickly and would force Wenger out of the club.
I was a little puzzled by this as-well. He sounds like he’s talking about a hypothetical situation but is getting miffed because he imagines the worst. He talks about two different scenarios, he says Arsene has the right not to think you are ready. Then he says but if I offer my time to work a little with the under 15s and he still says no, he says that would be hard to accept. It doesn’t sound like he done that though, so why is he talking about it in a hypothetical. Unless it’s the Henry situation. We did offer it full time, I’m confused with the sounds coming from Petit and Vieira’s camp.