The Daily Mirror are today claiming that Pep Guardiola wants to bring Mikel Arteta to Manchester City as part of his coaching staff.
The Arsenal captain, who is out of contact this summer has long been tipped for a managerial role in the future, however it would seem a strange move given his total lack of experience in this area so far.
That being said, City have shown a willingness to trust former Arsenal players in coaching roles ahead of the Gunners. Only recently, Patrick Vieira revealed that he never got a call from Arsenal when he desperately wanted to come back.
Many feel that Arteta could be offered a chance in north London and that would certainly stop a lot of crying and whinging in the summer if the midfielder, as expected, retires from playing and is allowed to go elsewhere to gain coaching experience.
I’m not sure why Arsene Wenger is still so reluctant to have older players around him.
While he has softened his stance on this somewhat in recent years, allowing former players to undertake youth training as part of their badges, it’s still hard to get my head around him allowing Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira and others to ply their trade elsewhere when they could bring so much to the club.
The Mirror also claim that Tottenham could be an option for the Spaniard given how close he is with Mauricio Pochettino.
Arteta previously said that the Spurs boss was ‘like a father to him’ after they both spent time with PSG when Miki was just a teenager and on-loan from Barca in 01/02, the season before he signed for Rangers.
Arteta, however, should he decide he might like an Arsenal future one day, will hopefully see how unwise this sort of move is.