After being confirmed as Luton Town’s new head coach, Jack Wilshere has revealed the advice he got from Mikel Arteta about management.
Jack Wilshere was confirmed as Luton Town’s new manager this week, with the former Arsenal midfielder and u18 head coach taking on his first full management job in the senior game.
Reflecting on his journey to this point, Wilshere recalled a conversation he’d had with Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta around a year earlier.
“Mikel [Arteta], when I spoke to him, not about this (Luton Town job), it was maybe a year ago,” Wilshere recalled.
“I said to him ‘Mikel, when did you know you were ready?’, and he laughed. And I was like ‘what are you laughing at?’
“He said ‘you just have to jump in and swim as hard as you can’.”
“He’s obviously done that really well, and I was close to that,” Wilshere added. “This feels a little bit similar to that, of course, it’s a different level. But when Mikel went in it wasn’t a nice place at Arsenal. The fans were not sure what was happening.
“What he’d done was he built a complete unity, a complete trust in what he was doing and it feels like a family, here as well, and getting people on board.
“And that’s it, getting people to believe and convincing them, and Mikel was good at that and there’s definitely things I’ll take from him on his journey.”
Like the Arsenal job in 2019, Wilshere is taking over at Luton amid plenty of fan disquiet. The team have suffered back-to-back relegations to play their football in League One, and they’re already a little off the pace if they want to bounce back up to the Championship.
Sitting 11th with as many defeats as wins so far this season, Luton could certainly use a boost. But with a gap of just five points to the play-off places, there’s certainly still hope for a turnaround.