Arsenal boss Arteta hails Wenger for launching so many coaching careers | OneFootball

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has hailed Arsene Wenger for launching so many coaching careers.

Arteta welcomes Patrick Vieira's Crystal Palace to the Emirates Stadium on Monday night, the pair having both captained the Gunners under Wenger.

Vieira won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups during a nine-year stint in Wenger's midfield and managed New York City FC and Nice before landing the Palace job this summer.

Arteta, meanwhile, returned to Arsenal as head coach in December 2019 having previously worked as an assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

The likes of Sol Campbell, Thierry Henry, Tony Adams, Remi Garde and Giovanni van Bronckhorst are among the other former Arsenal players to venture into management after playing under Wenger.

“We were all guided in a way, or made to feel in a different way about the game because we had Arsene as a manager," Arteta said.

“He started the fire in us to be a coach. Not only in me or probably in Patrick, but in many others, with his way of treating everybody at the club and with how he felt the game."

Having such an obvious influence as Wenger does have the downside of offering comparisons to be made with the Frenchman but Arteta is not threatened by such scrutiny.

“You have no choice (about comparisons)," he said. “You have the choice to say 'no, I don't want to take that job because they are always going to compare me'.

“But if you love what you want to do and you feel capable of achieving what you think you can achieve for that club, then it is your decision to take it up."