Arsenal: Freddie Ljungberg has to stay until the end of the season

Arsenal fans will want a solution immediately, but they won’t find it, as Freddie Ljungberg essentially has to stay until the end of the season.

Reports have emerged that Arsenal will be sticking with Freddie Ljungberg until the end of the season, and that might make some fans queasy, since the likelihood of Ljungberg keeping the role long-term, unless you ask Chris Sutton, are rather slim.

You know the drill, fans want an immediate fix, because immediate fixes are just so easy to come by in professional sports. Ljungberg’s inability to inspire his club to a win over Norwich about two days after taking over essentially ensures that he is not the immediate fix they wanted.

That said, there really isn’t an option here. I’m sure that the bosses at the club really wanted to stick with Unai Emery until the end of the season, but the results spoke for themselves. It had to end.

You can’t just grab one of the shortlisted guys in the middle of the season. Nuno Espirito Santo and Brendan Rodgers, for instance, are more embroiled in a race for European football than the Gunners are, so securing them has about a zero likelihood.

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Elsewhere, Max Allegri is in a race for another Serie A title with Juventus, so you’re not going to snag him, and while Mikel Arteta may be the top of the list, he’s still got a job right now as Pep’s right-hand man. That’s not an easy situation to walk away from.

The only guy you could essentially get right now is Mauricio Pochettino and I swear, I swear, if we are seriously interested in him I will vomit everywhere. I already threw up in my mouth.

If you sign a manager in the middle of the season, you are eliminating a lot of the premium options, like Allegri for instance. Don’t take the bait and feel like you have to find an immediate solution, because that solution doesn’t exist. No point in forcing it. Wait until we have time to put in the exhaustive legwork that we put in to find Unai Emery. I really don’t want to see this go the same way as Manchester United.

There are managers out there who can inspire change, and if that takes until the summer of 2020, that’s okay. Freddie can oversee the club until the end of the season, no problem.