Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been handed more control at the club along with a new job title, with the Spaniard promoted from ‘head coach’ to ‘first-team manager’.
With club structures in English football considerably shifting over the last ten or 20 years, Arsenal were arguably the last to have a traditional ‘manager’ in the former sense of the word until Arsene Wenger finally stepped down in 2018.
As a result of many clubs employing various staff to oversee or recruitment or handle contract negotiations, the job title ‘head coach’ has been increasingly common in the Premier League.
But Arsenal have confirmed the shift in title because ‘head coach’ does not do justice to the job that Arteta has done and the role he continues to fulfil on a daily basis.
It promises to give the 38-year-old more power and influence in the ongoing rebuild and he will be working more closely with technical director Edu to shape wider football operations.
"Mikel will join a really strong team with Edu and they'll be working really, really closely together to manage all the other elements of our football operations that are so important, whether that is analysis, recruitment, high performance or medical, they'll be looking after those areas together,” managing director Vinai Venkatesham told Arsenal.com.
“They'll also together be responsible for our technical recommendations, whether that's players that we're going to buy, whether that's players that we're going to sell, whether that's players that we're going to loan.”
Venkatesham added that coaching the first-team will remain Arteta’s primary responsibility, but acknowledged there is ‘so much more that he can bring’, prompting the change.
"Right from the day he walked through the door, he was doing much more than being our head coach,” the club chief explained. “So we're going to be changing his job title going forward. He'll move from head coach to be the first-team manager. That's recognition of what he's been doing from the day he walked in the door, but also where we see his capabilities.”
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Source : 90min