In his final years at Arsenal, it was gently put to Arsène Wenger that the club had been missing a trick. So many great players from the recent past, with so much experience and understanding of the Arsenal way, had been left on the outside, looking in. Shouldn’t the club be looking to tap into that knowledge and get them on board?

Wenger pointed out that his assistant manager for his first 16 years at Arsenal had been Pat Rice, succeeded in 2012 by Steve Bould, who had previously spent 11 years as an Arsenal player and another 11 as an academy coach. He said that he liked the principle and was pleased that Jens Lehmann, Patrick Vieira, Mikel Arteta, Robert Pires, Freddie Ljungberg, Thierry