Arsene Wenger announced on Friday that he’s leaving Arsenal at the end of the season, but who might end up leaving with him?
After 22 years at the club, Wenger finally called time on his Arsenal spell this week. It came at a surprising time for many of us, including the players, reportedly. Clearly many expected him to stick around for a while longer, and his departure might have an impact on their own situations.
There are a number of players and staff with a personal connection to the manager who may end going the same way. Here’s our list of the four people we think are most likely to follow him out of the door:
2Steve Bould
This one seems a near certainty. As a general rule, clubs that replace one manager with another usually give the new boss the chance to appoint their own assistant. As a result, you don’t often see the former manager’s assistant stick around for long.
The only real exception is when someone needs to takeover as a caretaker manager. If Arsenal had sacked Wenger without anyone in line to take over, they might have needed Bould to step in until they could make the new appointment.
Since the manager ended up leaving on his own terms with notice given in advance, that shouldn’t be the case.
More than that, there’s a suggestion that Bould isn’t having the impact at Arsenal that he or the club want. Lee Dixon claimed recently that the former defender doesn’t get to do as much in training as he wants.
If that’s not true, the way the team defend on the pitch suggests he isn’t getting his message across anyway. Perhaps Bould could step back into a purely defensive coaching role to see if that helps. Otherwise, I’d expect him to leave with Wenger.