I got fought against a little bit, no he's playing with 18s he's not ready
and i said there's no chance like if i'm the boss
of this team he's coming up training with me and i'll show you he can play
I played so much it's been my life since i was five years old when i started and um so came a
few years after i retired and arsene and some other coaches uh advised me to do it and even
one actually i coached that i i had misplaced it like you see the game's the best i've had any
player to see the tactical parts of the game and that gave me the confidence and that's probably
one of my strengths that actually i can see what's going on on the pitch from when i'm on the side
and i've heard it a few times in a few interviews like oh yeah but you were like the rock star a bit
of the of the olden days and uh maybe didn't think you would become a coach and this and that and
often maybe you have a stereotype or who's going to be the coach it's like the one that wanted
to be the captain and the one that wanted to be organised and you can almost see it and maybe then
i come from the side from from a different angle because i i've had some experiences when i've been
with an assistant to this and i wanna they got angry with players and maybe i can see it from a
different way but like see it from the place where i've actually experienced what happened here and
see it a little bit differently so i'm quite happy when when people say it in that way because it's
it's um we're not always everybody's the same so uh i take it as a compliment when people say oh
i didn't see you becoming a coach i thought maybe like (Martin) Keown would like to be a coach like
like little bit how how they were but it all depends how you are as a human
being as well and that's why i think psychology is interesting like for me for example when we played
some players were very vocal like even into the media how we should play and this and i'm
i always thought what are you talking about you're not the manager if you may be the captain and you
have a private conversation with the manager you might have talked about the tactics and stuff and
personally i always felt like i have a great manager i believe in totally it's
not for me to stand talking about tactics of course i i have an opinion and a quite strong
opinion but it's not really valid so you see things different of course there's discussion
in dressing you'll stand up if someone challenge how you do and you discuss it but
out of it i think it's everybody's different how they see it
you probably develop yourself as a as a human being to try to understand
different managers like i worked really well with Arsène (Wenger) because it was logic you
could see why he made certain decisions you will understand what he did he was very strong on like
he we were allowed to be individuals and be who were but like you show respect to
people you know arrogance to make your head blow away like you should like there was
certain behaviours he was very strong at and uh or how you spoke to each other people look from
oh that's a massive player that's a mess well they can say what i'm like there is
respect to whoever is you supposed to speak to and stuff like that you can see other managers
other people have different values different things and so yeah everybody is not the same and
when you've been with my manager for 10 years and i could say probably my national team coach was
similar it's uh you learn obviously sam was one of them i spoke to about if you thought i should
coach or not no he he was just like delighted he thought it would be great for me and
like all that and uh spoke to us and i spoke to my old national team coaches and some
people and they they thought i could be good at it so then i was like okay i'll give it a go
i got the advice as a ex-player you can jump over some hurdles maybe because of your name and they
said don't do that because then it's much easier to to fail because you don't have the experience
that you need the young players are the future and the generations are different and in those days
than it was when i played so i got the advice to like i should start with younger players to learn
from them not them learning from me i learned from them what how they see it not being this
coach they're always like oh when i played it was like this and when it was this we do this like
take that and throw that in the bin and try to learn from scratch i did arsenal 15s i think 16s
19s in the champions league the 23s was an assistant in in Germany um
and then was an assistant at arsenal and had an interim coach there so i tried always to like take
certain steps that was well fought through to to learn things and spoke to a lot of people to get
advice what i think was the best way not for me to quickly go to the top but what would make me
ready to go to the top i had to learn from them when you start i started coaching 15 year olds
of course maybe my tactical knowledge and stuff i know a bit more than you use when you play as
a fifth year old but i felt i should learn and i learned so much from them so of course i have a
feeling of extreme happiness when they uh when they make it not for myself it's just like you
know how hard they work people always just see it on the tv or they of course football players
are spoiled in one way because they get paid to do what they love to do but they do sacrifice a lot
of other things as well that most other teenagers can do and it's not always so easy when you're
young and there's quite an honest conversation when you do well you don't do well and
that's something maybe for players to learn as well like oh he said i didn't do well yeah that's
that's conversation we need to learn for you to get better we need to understand each other we
have to be open for those conversations and that's from a young age and maybe not so easy and so they
learn a lot they do such development that it's yeah it's amazing to see them Bukayo (Saka) I
had him when he was 15 i think you tried to help players to get a career and especially as a youth
coach even if you win things and stuff that's not important the important thing is for me to
teach him certain things that like stepping stones that he'll be ready for the first team that's my
job but like Bukayo obviously he's like did all the work himself worked hard was a very good
professional when i had the 23s at arsenal like i said i'm going to take up Bukayo to the 23s and
I got fought against a little bit, no he's playing with 18s, he's not ready and i said
there's no chance like if i'm the boss of this team he's coming up training with me and i'll show
you he can play and so that sometimes as a coach you have to have those discussions where people
don't agree with you and uh but Bukayo showed all the time what he can do and um his decision making
and how he does things it's it's always been good it's not just then about his size or how powerful
is when he's young it's like if he can uh do those things and he crosses at the right time hits the
right person or he dribbles at the right time to try to learn these fundamentals that for me was
important with Bukayo for because you could see that one from a young age that he was doing even
if he was strong and stuff like that and it feels so nice to just see them they're getting better
it was an amazing honour and uh so it was it's different how do you say mixed emotions because
everybody knows but i wanted to have some sort of stuff i wanted to have an
assistant that could be with me and i didn't get that and that was tough because then it's
difficult to get everything going but i learned a lot and um players responded i felt in the end i
pushed through because i knew i wouldn't be the manager for the
long run regardless i knew what the future of the club was and it's the young players
and so i i gave the debut i think from Emile (Smith Rowe) i think he started at Everton
but for me that was important that's that's the future of arsenal football club and um i managed
least to put a stamp on that i could push those players to to that and uh obviously as an awesome
man it was a great honour to to stand there i've done that um and from that you push on
you have to see the human being it's like i know criticism to any other coach in any shape or form
but like maybe that's how i am as a human being i always try to see the person everybody's not the
same i had for example an old national team coach that taught me so much he would just come to my
room i knew i didn't sleep at night for somebody he'll come at like one o'clock
at night hello do you want to talk about football he'll sit that to three in the morning and i was
i would fight for him like i love him i still love him to this day and i think there's so much
more to those things and and if you look at the generations like i've tried to say
like it doesn't matter what i think it's it's them i need to do everything to help them and
to make them play well that could be other things you need to help them with it's not just oh why
did he do that why did this one do that like yeah it's a totally different generation to us try to
i try at least to like take my time then to understand the problem more like why is that play
always late and you get annoyed and people get annoyed and then it's this and that like okay but
maybe we having a few times you sit on the grass for two three hours and try to like
understand there might be a an issue behind it that you need to solve and when you solve it it's
it's a lot easier than just finding them so for me at least that's my leadership skill with let's try
to understand them and try to uh of course you're the manager and like when we train you train there
is no that's a different way of working and when there's certain things but then as well i
believe at least you have to see the human human being as well behind the football player i spend
a lot of time at arsenal with i psychologists to sit and learn and how do you help them with
pressure and this and the insight he gave me and how to behave as a coach and what i need to do
that was invaluable like i'd done so much and i spent so much on that part because it's it's
them i'm just a coach i need to get my players to um to be at that top of their level and like
we don't think about it some of course we can say oh when we play there's a lot of pressure
this and i yeah but like they get caned every day on social media can they cope with that does that
affect them when they play football if i know how they are and this i learned from some coaches but
i might get 5/10% more out of them and when we're in a tight game and we need those 5/10% we might
win yeah what's next that's the question no i um i want to be a manager and um we've had some nice
offers and stuff and that hasn't worked in the way i maybe wanted to work i think it's important that
uh when you take that step it's it's the correct one and you feel good about it um but owners and
players all kinds of things but it's an exciting step and i'm really really looking forward
you