On November 29, Freddie Ljungberg was named interim head coach of Arsenal after Unai Emery was sacked by the club following a run of seven matches without a win. In this piece from October 16, Amy Lawrence, David Ornstein and James McNicholas look at the former winger’s transition from player to coach…



Freddie Ljungberg didn’t always dream of being a coach. “No it wasn’t my plan,” he has said. “I liked my life!”



Steve Zakuani, who played alongside Ljungberg for Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders, agrees. “If someone had said to me in 2009 or 2010, ‘What’s Freddie going to be doing in a few years?’ I wouldn’t have said ‘coach’. I would have said maybe open a restaurant, or continue modelling.”



A man with interests as diverse as Ljungberg was not an obvious candidate to stay in the game. It’s not something he needed to do either.



“I...