Sle Another Day

In November I wrote a piece about Renee Slegers adapting well to the precise and somewhat unique role of being an Interim Manager. The assignment of an interim is short-term by definition and it’s different from picking up a team and a club fresh, especially if you are an external appointment. I must admit, at that point, I was sceptical about the idea of Slegers becoming the permanent appointee.

As I set out in the piece, Interim is a very different assignment to being a permanent manager, not least because the permanent gig has a lot more responsibility attached to it- like recruitment and attraction and how you manage upwards. It also begs the question as to how sustainable your approach as an interim can be over a longer period. The ‘new manager bounce’ is a very real phenomenon in football and it is transient in nature.

If we consider Slegers’ permanent candidacy for the role of Arsenal manager, these are all questions still to be answered. If I were interviewing her for the position, this is where I would focus my questions, especially as many areas of the squad are in late prime age. At the beginning of this ‘block’ of games after the November international break, I was told Slegers was very much under consideration for the permanent role. One of the prevailing reasons she was given the December ‘block’ in the first place, in my view, is because of a lack of compelling, available candidates elsewhere.

This is a reality of managerial recruitment; it is a bit of a crapshoot and who is or isn’t on the market matters. The men’s team largely has Mikel Arteta in situ because when Unai Emery’s race was run in December 2019, there just weren’t any other compelling candidates. Timing is a further intangible when it comes to hiring a manager.

A candidate can be the right person at one point in a team’s trajectory, but not at another. There are a series of intangibles that are difficult to pin down, sometimes there is something in the air and sometimes there just isn’t. Hiring a manager is almost akin to the creative process, sometimes the words or the melody or the inspiration just come to you and sometimes they don’t.

I think Arsenal are now in a situation where it is riskier not to appoint Slegers to the permanent position than it is to push the button. Firstly, asking a squad fresh from one managerial resignation, who have adapted very well to an Interim Manager, to adapt to another new manager mid-season is inherent with risk, even if the winter break minimises that to an extent. There is also a risk of disenfranchisement around a club when excellent performance is not rewarded in this way.

You have to think it would be difficult for Slegers to go back to her previous role at this stage. There are a few vacant managerial positions around at the moment; Aston Villa, Ireland, Canada. I imagine that if Slegers isn’t offered the manager’s position at Arsenal, she won’t have to wait very long for the top job somewhere else. I think that would be fine if Arsenal had a strong candidate in mind elsewhere but the fact that the process is close to 10 weeks deep and that candidate isn’t in situ suggests there is no such candidate.

The NWSL and Damallsvenskan seasons finished nearly a month ago now. Nick Cushing was relieved of his duties at New York City FC in late November and Mark Parsons has been available throughout the entire period. The paucity of top coaches in women’s football is illustrated at other clubs too. Gareth Taylor and Marc Skinner not only held onto their jobs in the wake of poor seasons, both were given one-year extensions immediately following disappointing campaigns.

A lot of this was down to a dry managerial market. I find it difficult to believe there is an obviously stronger candidate than Slegers. That doesn’t mean that some of the unanswered questions around recruitment and sustainability disappear, of course. All those reservations would and should remain. Arsenal’s squad is approaching a rebuild phase and the next manager will have to oversee much of that.

Hiring Slegers would absolutely represent a risk on this basis. But this risk will be present regardless of who Arsenal hire. When the club initially hired Joe Montemurro and Jonas Eidevall, both were initially awarded one-year contracts as a sort of trial period and both extended those contracts a few months into their debut campaigns. A similar sort of deal for Slegers (maybe an initial 18-month deal with a six-month break clause / review) would be entirely feasible.

Because if it doesn’t work, you can just change manager again pretty easily, as Arsenal’s current situation has illustrated quite nicely. Keeping Slegers in situ until the end of the season is another option but that risks undervaluing Slegers by implying doubt in her credentials, it does feel like we have reached more of an all or nothing stage. Only committing until the end of the season also makes planning for the summer and contract extensions potentially tricky too.

Effectively, a trial period has been created for Slegers- that will certainly be the public perception- and Arsenal have come through it with flying colours. There were some hurdles during the December block that I think were cleared too. She started her tenure with a very consistent line-up to create stability, that was never going to be sustainable, she needed to prove that she could flex when key players were unavailable.

Losing Little and Walti simultaneously was a good examination in that respect and she solved the issue. The Bayern game was an important data point too because it was the only game of her reign, possibly alongside United away, where Arsenal were not strong favourites.

The Bayern game could have gone either way, of course, as is usually the case when evenly matched teams meet, but Arsenal came through it. I accept that one home game is not a large sample size but if Arsenal appoint someone else now, that data point is literally zero for another manager. You don’t usually get the luxury of having a Head Coach in a probation period.

I think at this stage it risks muddying the waters and creating disenfranchisement to not offer her the role. It wouldn’t be without its risks but there is no such thing as a risk free appointment. Good managerial hires are usually down to a mixture of timing and luck, sometimes you do just stumble into a good thing. If it doesn’t work long-term, I think it’s a relatively easy fix for a club like Arsenal too.