Mikel Arteta’s time at Arsenal has been heavily scrutinised since he took over as manager of the club in 2019 from the sacked Unai Emery.
It was certainly a risky appointment by the Arsenal board as Arteta came into the role highly inexperienced having never managed a team at the top-level in his youthful coaching career.
However, this isn’t the first time Stan Kroenke has done this as he followed a similar strategy with his NFL side, LA Rams, who are set to play in the Super Bowl on Sunday evening.
The Arsenal Way's Bailey Keogh and Umar Choudhry spoke with the CEO of Downtown Rams, Jake Ellenbogen in a special Stan Kroenke-focused episode to delve into the strategy of the Gunners owner and why he has been able to succeed with the Rams.
Jake touched on the risks Kroenke took in the process of appointing the Rams' current coach and they certainly seem to mirror some of his decisions at Arsenal.
“He went against the grain and hired the youngest head coach to ever coach football in the NFL and that’s Sean McVay,” he said.
“McVay won 11 out of 16 but lost in the first round of the playoffs and then next year they planned to get it fixed by spending a little bit of more money to go out and get some stars, and they go to the Super Bowl.”
Jake then went on to speak about the trust that Kroenke had in the decision to appoint a young coach at the Rams and the belief he had in the process he created.
“A lot of the pinnacle of what the Rams has become is because of the trust that Stan Kroenke had to sign off on an expensive but young McVay at the age of 30.
“He also let him develop team after team, and let him make mistakes and learn from them and go out and be able to spend the money on players such as Odell Beckham Jr, who is globally known.
“So getting in some of these players, and the coaching staff that McVay has, it has been able to develop players even below the star level.
“It all comes down to the fact that Kroenke stayed out of the way and provided the funds, and the confidence he had in an unprecedented hire in a 30-year-old coach.”
Umar then went on to highlight the similarities between McVay and Arteta at Arsenal.
“There is similarities with Arteta, he is in his thirties and Arsenal have trusted him. When he was appointed he was the head coach but after the first season he won the FA Cup, he won a trophy within his first season, and then they appointed him as manager, so they gave him that trust and that authority, which is similar to McVay.”
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