In every organization, including Arsenal PLC, there are structures! There are positions to be filled by people who are considered competent enough to fill them. Before you are employed into such posts, a screening or testing process would have been carried out to determine if you truly fit to occupy such a post.
In football, we have what we call the coaching crew. The coaching crew consists of the team manager, the assistant manager, the fitness coach, the medical team and others. For you to occupy any of these posts, you must have undergone a training or learning process, while also having on the field experience. A football coach is expected to have a coaching license or badge, which he must have earned in a coaching school. His assistant is also expected to have such requirements.
Great football coaches have given testimonies to how important their assistants have been, a winning team is usually the team where the manager constantly shares ideas and tips with his assistant. Coaches like Mourinho, Guardiola and Ancelotti, are known to be comfortable working with certain persons who assist them in their jobs. They don’t go coaching any club without taking their assistants with them. That is how important an assistant coach is.
At Arsenal, I sometimes wonder what role Steve Bould plays in the team! He was a good defender during his playing days and he played the game professionally. When he came to Arsenal to replace Pat Rice, the immediate former assistant coach, it was expected that he was coming to do a job on the Arsenal defence. It was expected that he was coming to organize the defence and teach the defenders how to do a good job, defence wise! Critically analyzing how Arsenal defenders have played this season so far, one will be forced to ask what Steve Bould is really doing at Arsenal? Is it a case of him talking and Wenger refusing to listen? Does he get consulted for ideas on how to organize the defence? Is Wenger not comfortable with him or what? If his contributions are not being felt in the team, what is happening then?
We need to know what is really happening in Arsenal. If Steve Bould is not functioning well as an assistant, won’t it be better he is relieved of his duty instead of paying him for nothing? I feel our defenders can play better if they are tutored better, so why are they not playing better than what they are offering us now? Don’t we need answers to what Steve Bould’s functions at Arsenal are?
Sylvester Kwentua