Per Mertesacker reveals Mikel Arteta urged Ivan Gazidis to keep him at the club

In July 2016, Mikel Arteta’s decision was made. Aged 34 and recently retired, the Spaniard was given the opportunity to stay and coach at Arsenal. Mauricio Pochettino also wanted him on his staff at Tottenham. But Arteta had decided to join Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. About that time, something else had crystallized in Arteta’s mind. It concerned his old club and Per Mertesacker.

“When he left us, he left (former CEO) Ivan Gazidis a note that read, ‘You’re losing me now, you’re asking too late,'” Mertesacker recalled. “But he said to Ivan, ‘You can’t lose this man. Just put it somewhere.”’

Arteta and Mertesacker had arrived in north London on the same day – amid the shambles of Arsenal’s 8-2 defeat at Manchester United in 2011. They spent five seasons together under Arsene Wenger. Now they are together again. Arsenal followed Arteta’s advice and appointed Mertesacker as academy manager in 2017, even before he retired from playing. In the end, they also listened to the German. After Wenger stepped down in 2018, Mertesacker recommended Arteta for the top job.

“I put in a good word for him, without knowing how good he was as a coach,” says the academy boss.

“I knew how good he was as a person and how much I trusted him.”

Instead, the job went to Unai Emery. “He called me to thank me when he didn’t get the job.”

However, a year and a half later, Arteta was back. “It felt like the right time,” says Mertesacker.

“We couldn’t pull it off in terms of league titles when we were here,” he adds on their matchdays. “Hopefully we can be more successful in terms of trophies and big titles, and hopefully build the next generation of players.”

The signs are encouraging. Despite their recent faltering, Arteta’s side remain at the top of the Premier League.

‘Who would have thought that?’ says Mertesacker. The women’s team is 90 minutes from the Champions League final. And at the Emirates on Tuesday night, Arsenal’s U18s take on West Ham in the FA Youth Cup final. Manager Jack Wilshere played the last time they won the trophy in 2009.

“It’s a brilliant feeling that we have here, that we create,” says Mertesacker. “It’s based on the past we had together and it’s really powerful.”

The 38-year-old German felt similarities between him and Arteta upon their arrival in North London.

“I never thought, ‘I’ll be an academy manager and you’ll be the manager,’ he says. ‘(But) we have traits of taking responsibility and wanting to take people along. I felt that.’

Mertesacker has also built a close relationship with sporting director Edu in recent years.

He is also partly responsible for Wilshere’s new role at Arsenal. It was Mertesacker who persuaded the 31-year-old to start his coaching badges when they were still players here. It didn’t seem the obvious route for the midfielder.

‘I probably thought the same thing: he’s not going to make that switch. But he proved me wrong,” says the German.

“I had a perception about him – super talented but probably not living up to his potential because of all the injuries.”

He adds: ‘As a player of the first team you get up at 9 or 10 am and you are ready at 2 pm. That’s your day done. You can’t do this if you want to do a good job.’

Mertesacker, Arteta and Edu were all involved in the appointment of the new U18 boss last summer.

“I prayed that Jack would show up for the interview and be himself,” says the German.

“I sat there, Mikel sat there, Edu sat there… that was a moment when the truth comes out.”

Nine months later, Mertesacker has just spent the morning on the grass helping the Wilshere players prepare for Tuesday’s final.

“He made a huge impression,” adds the German. “His ambition is of course to go somewhere and coach a first team one day, but I’m not letting him in at the moment.”

A few weeks into 2019, between Emery’s sacking and Arteta’s appointment, Mertesacker got a taste of life in the first-team dugout under interim boss Freddie Ljungberg.

“The shock experience of my life, actually,” he recalls. “It was heavy and overwhelming.” And it proved something: “This isn’t the direction I want to go,” says Mertesacker.

Now he manages dozens of staff at Arsenal’s Hale End academy. Now he can use Arteta’s strict standards to his own advantage.

“It makes it so much easier for me,” says Mertesacker, who will ask young people, “Do you think this behavior will make it easier to get into the first team…that Mikel Arteta will put up with this behavior?”

That helps Mertesacker’s mission to create both good people and good players. Familiar questions about footballers and their attitudes resurfaced last week, when the Arsenal first team were accused – unjustly, Arteta points out – of ignoring a young mascot. Mertesacker knows how the ‘bubble’ of academic life – the handouts, the facilities – can turn into ‘entitlements’.

“So we work hard every day with our people to get the right messages, the right team building, life skills programs,” he says.

“Handling skills is the greatest talent…creating strong, resilient young boys who are able to rise to those challenges.”

That’s why Arsenal mix players between age groups and vary their playing time.

“We put our best player in the Under 14 on the bench? Get it done.’

The message is simple: ‘Football is okay, but not good enough. This club, this academy is about more than just kicking a ball. If you just miss something in school, do it… if you just build a foundation on your soccer skills, that’s over.’

Why? “You will be released.” Mertesacker was written off as a teenager. “Even my dad said I wouldn’t make it,” he recalls.

But the road to Arsenal’s first team is there. Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe were part of the last U18 team to reach the Youth Cup final. They lost.

“I would like the club to win,” said Mertesacker. ‘If that is not the case? Do we still believe in them? Yes! Because we’ve seen other players fail in those moments and still be successful in their lives…so this is a celebration for the academy. We embrace it and we get to work with the outcome.’