PER MERTESACKER has revealed that when Mikel Arteta left Arsenal in 2016 he wrote a note telling the club to hire him.
The message was sent to Gunner’s chief executive at the time Ivan Gazidis and urged him to find a spot for Mertesacker in the club.
Mikel Arteta told Arsenal to hire Per Mertesacker
Mertesacker returned the favour when the Arsenal manager job was available
The German hung up his boots in 2018 and was appointed as the club’s academy manager, where he is still working.
And five years on, he is now working with his former team-mate, who is the manager of the first team.
He told the Evening Standard: “When [Arteta] left us, he left Ivan Gazidis a note saying: ‘You can’t lose this guy’,
“[It was] in terms of: you are losing me now, you are asking me too late. Because he had promised to go to City.
“He told Ivan: ‘You can’t lose this guy. Just put him somewhere’. That was kind of the start, and we kept tabs.
“And then between him and Unai [Emery], that was the situation.
“I put a good word in for him, without knowing how good he was as a coach. I knew how good he was as a human being and how much I trusted him.
“He called me when he didn’t get the job to say: ‘Thank you, I know you put my name forward’. A year and a half after when he then came, and Edu came, it felt like the right time.
“From there it has been a feeling of trust, that we both do the best for the club and it is pretty much aligned.”
The 2018 World Cup winner with Germany had a taste of coaching following the sacking of Unai Emery in 2019.
He was part of the team that worked with interim coach Freddie Ljungberg.
But the three weeks in the coaching staff was enough for Mertesacker to know he wanted to continue with his role in the academy.
He said: “I had the three weeks with Freddie Ljungberg and that was kind of the shock experience of my life, basically.
“When I had to support him, that’s when I felt it was a bit overwhelming, almost coming back to my 15-year playing career – every week something is on the line, every result you have to take. I felt that was not something I wanted to pursue.”
Arteta was then hired as manager and has led the club on a rebuild and has taken them to the top of the Premier League a year and a half after Mertesacker put in his good word.
