A Football Manager Career

18: A Childhood Dream

Just over two weeks later I was appointed the Arsenal manager. This was my childhood club and I had always dreamed of managing Arsenal one day. What's more, I had always said that I would only return to England as a manager of one of the top sides. I had achieved my goal. (Arguably.)

When I looked at the club around me on that first day, however, I was horrified to see that I hardly recognised it. I had been a professional manager for a total of 5766 days and this was the first time in those fifteen or so years that I had actually paid any attention to what had been going on in the Premier League. I had only been in Europe for a short period of that time with my focus nearly always on Asia and I had no idea what Arsenal's current standing was. Unai Emery was now at Barcelona, having left Arsenal well over a decade before, and there wasn't a single original player left at the club – not even in a staff role. I was pleased to see that in the club's best eleven over the last fifteen years there were at least a couple of names I recognised from the Arsenal I had supported, Tierney and Nketiah, but that was all. This was a new club and a whole new England for me to navigate. 

As such I wanted some familiar faces around me and I set about bringing in the top people I had worked with previously. In the interview I had been accused on never spending a long period at a club and I was told that was a 'concern' for the board. I thought this was a little harsh considering I had spent six years with China, five years with Kitchee and three years with DL Yifang. However, sometimes what people believe is more important than the truth and I therefore knew that I had to spend a long time with Arsenal in order to remove this negative image about me. Also, why would I want to leave anytime soon? I was in the highest reputation league in the world with a competitive club I had loved for decades. I wanted to get everything in place so that I could be successful for a long time and so that I would never have to leave.

On this note, my first signing was the amazing Antontonio Celenza. He was now eighteen and I had seen enough from him at Lazio to know that I wanted to work with him for the rest of my career. He was an even better finisher than Daniel Rial and that's saying something. He had dedicated his young player awards to me the previous season and he leapt at the chance to work with me again and we snapped him up for just seventeen million. I shipped out Arsenal's thirty-year-old striker and made Celenza our new number nine and star man at the top of the pitch. Now that I was no longer the China manager I didn't feel quite the same affinity to those stars and whilst I scouted a few, none made me think they were quite good enough for the Arsenal side I was building. I did however bring half a dozen members of staff with me: a few of whom had now worked with me for over a decade. I stole a few more players from Lazio too. Whilst we hadn't been quite as creative as I'd have liked, we managed to get more clean sheets than anyone else in the league and a big part of that was the consistent brilliance of our defensive midfielder. It took a bid of just over forty million to sign him, but I was delighted when he arrived. With those two additions, and a new young goalkeeper who my scouts told me was going to be one of the best in the world, I was confident that the side could get into the top four and challenge for the title in the years beyond. I have said it before and I will probably say it again, but by the time the first match of the season arrived, I felt 100% ready.

For once, my pre-season confidence was deserved and we won our first four games, including two London Derbies, without conceding a single goal. Furthermore, my striker gamble paid off as Celenza instantly got the season underway in style with a brace in the first game against Nottingham Forest. After the first eleven games we were the only side still unbeaten in the league and the crazily-good Celenza was the joint top scorer. Annoyingly, however, history seemed to be repeating itself yet again as whilst we weren't losing, we were getting far too many draws. Indeed, we had once again drawn more games than we had won. Remarkly, though, this wasn't actually harming us in the league and we were sitting in second, just two points behind... Bournemouth. The draws were costing us in the cups however. We had drawn 2-2 against Burnley in the Carabao Cup and had then been dumped out of the competition on the subsequent penalties. We had also played four games in the Champions League and were last in the group after drawing three of them and losing horrifically against Bayern.

The twelfth game was my first ever North London Derby. I don't mind admitting that I was a little bit nervous going into the game. The partnership at the heart of our defence was ruined with both of them having picked up too many yellows already in the season. We were also going to be without Celenza as he had picked up a knock in training and I was advised not to risk him. I hate to say it, but I set the team up to be a little bit conservative against our rivals and to hit them on the break. We managed to escape with a 1-1 draw, but that was largely due to their Josh Phillips being sent off on the 74th minute and allowing us to snatch a late equaliser. We were still unbeaten, but I was now concerned as we had now only won one game in all competitions in the last thirteen matches and it was clear the squad was lacking in good depth.

Whilst we had started the season focussed on vertical tika-taka after it was heavily suggested this style would please everyone, I decided to use the twelve-day break before the next game to drill my tried and tested possession based wing play style onto the lads in the hope this would help improve things. It was important that it did as our next two games were a game against top four rivals Manchester United, and a crucial match in the Champions League which we had to win to keep our hopes of reaching the next round alive.

We drew both games.

To my great frustration we didn't just crash out of Europe, but each and every cup in turn. To make matters worse, we never flunked out dramatically but instead always with a pathetic whimper. This meant that within a week of the new year our only focus was the league. I don't think I have previously included a spoiler quite like this and cut straight to the chase, but it is difficult not to as this season would turn out to be the most annoying and depressing of my career. This isn't because we did awfully, it's that we were continually so close to doing incredibly. 

I'm just going to cut to it and move on because it is still too painful a topic for me to dwell on too much: We finished the season as Invincibles, but we didn't win the league.

The childhood dream, however, was ongoing as at the end of the season Neil Harris was sacked from the England job and it was immediately offered to me. It was about time to be honest. I have nothing against Harris, but he had done nothing to show that he was worthy of the job. In his career he had managed Millwall, Leyton Orient, Brentford and Millwall before getting the job and in that time he hadn't really won anything. It was time for an experienced International manager and someone who had been Invincible in the Premier League to guide England to success. 

There weren't any competitions of note in 2036 however so for now that job could lay dormant as I instead focussed on Arsenal and turning our Invincible form into something tangible: trophies. After all, it is disgusting that you can be invincible and not win the league! So surely the next season was ours. (Mine.)