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Freddie Ljungberg's Arsenal promotion designed to bring best out of young talent - and help boost club's finances
A year on from Arsene Wenger’s departure, Arsenal are stepping up the process of phasing out the old and replacing it with the new. The latest example of this strategy is the imminent appointment of Freddie Ljungberg to the first-team coaching staff — a move that will further strengthen the ties between the club’s academy and Unai Emery’s senior squad.
Ljungberg, who returned to Arsenal last summer, has impressed as the head coach of the under-23 team. He has worked closely with a strong group of exciting youngsters, who are seen by many as one of the club’s most talented generations in years, and his proximity to the first team will help to facilitate the promotion of the most gifted players from the academy.
It is hard to overstate the importance of this pathway, particularly in light of Arsenal’s ongoing absence from the Champions League. On both a sporting and financial level, they know they must get this right. With the club’s finances under such strain, it is vital that Arsenal can either produce their own players or make a meaningful profit on the youngsters they have nurtured.
“We are putting a lot of strategic weight in the academy,” said Raul Sanllehi, the head of football, in the autumn. At that time, a handful of academy players were receiving occasional first-team opportunities in the cup competitions under Emery. Emile Smith Rowe, Joe Willock and Eddie Nketiah were often part of the squad, while the highly-rated Bukayo Saka, only 17, made his first few senior appearances around the New Year.
Naturally, these opportunities dwindled in the second half of the season, when the pressure increased and the stakes were higher. With Smith Rowe sent on loan to RB Leipzig, only Nketiah remained involved in the first team, and that was a direct consequence of Danny Welbeck’s long-term injury. If Welbeck had remained fit, Nketiah would have joined Augsburg on loan in January. There is concern within the club that, without much game-time, the striker’s development stagnated in the second half of the campaign.
It was notable, then, that at the point of no return in the disastrous Europa League final defeat by Chelsea, Emery replaced the underperforming Mesut Ozil with Willock, who was lively off the bench. A sign of things to come, perhaps, following a summer in which a clearout of senior players looks increasingly likely.
Per Mertesacker, the former Arsenal defender who now leads the academy, will certainly hope that next season provides more chances for the best young players. Mertesacker has “blown away” the club’s hierarchy in his first year in the job, to the extent that he was promoted to the club’s executive team within a few months. There will be an expectation from him that the likes of Reiss Nelson and Smith Rowe, in particular, are given regular opportunities to impress for the first team once the new campaign begins.
The ideal scenario for Arsenal is that these players are genuinely good enough to become mainstays in a side that is pushing to qualify for the Champions League. This, though, is unlikely. A more realistic outcome of their renewed commitment to the academy is that they can turn it into a profitable part of their self-sustaining business model.
Once again, Liverpool will provide the inspiration. Emery has been impressed by Liverpool’s transformation on the pitch under Jurgen Klopp in the last three seasons, and there is a sense that the Merseyside club are now the best-run business in the Premier League.
Most of the focus has been on Liverpool’s shrewd operation in the transfer market, with the sale of Philippe Coutinho funding the high-profile signings of Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk, for example. Arguably more impressive, though, is the way Liverpool have maximised, in a financial sense, the younger players on their books.
Take Danny Ward, for example, the goalkeeper who signed for Liverpool at the age of 18 for £100,000. Four loan spells and six years later, he was sold to Leicester City for £12.5m. Jordon Ibe joined Liverpool when he was 16, made a handful of impressive first-team showings, and then joined Bournemouth for £15m. Dominic Solanke joined Liverpool at the end of his Chelsea contract and was sold, again to Bournemouth, for £19m.
The list goes on. Kevin Stewart arrived on a free transfer from Tottenham Hotspur and was sold to Hull City for around £8m. Academy product Andre Wisdom’s move to Derby County could rise to around £5m. There are more to come, too, with loanees Harry Wilson and Marko Grujic set to command hefty fees if Liverpool choose to sell them on.
Arsenal, by contrast, have made no money on the departures of Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey, and only received small fees for Joel Campbell, who has made 80 international appearances for Costa Rica, and Chuba Akpom, an academy product who has since won the Greek league and cup with PAOK. And then there’s Serge Gnabry, who left for £4.5m but is now a regular for Bayern Munich and Germany.
Every penny counts for Arsenal and these all represent wasted opportunities. It is a long-running problem which they are desperate to fix, and the recent promotion of lead analyst Ben Knapper to loan manager is indicative of their renewed focus on finding the right moves for the young players.
There has been success, of sorts, on that front in recent months. Calum Chambers, who was excellent on loan at Fulham, is worth far more now than he was 12 months ago. The same can be said for Nelson, who impressed at Hoffenheim. Both hope to impress Emery and return to the first team next season, but if they are unable to do so then Arsenal will at least be able to sell them for a meaningful price.
Ljungberg’s promotion will help the younger players to receive more top-level training and, if they are good enough, more first-team minutes. The best of those will help drive Arsenal forward on the pitch, while the rest — the club hopes — will help to boost their finances off it.