With speculation about a possible leap into the managerial hot-seat at New York City, Arsene Wenger believes Patrick Vieira has the right attributes and is at the appropriate age to make the step up.
The former Arsenal midfielder moved into coaching after a wonderful playing career in 2011, taking over as Manchester City’s reserve team and Elite Development squad manager.
Surprisingly to many, it is at the club where his playing career ended that his education in coaching has taken place rather than under his former boss at Arsenal where he enjoyed the majority of his playing days.
But the Arsenal manager spoke highly of his fellow Frenchman and thinks he will become a manager soon.
I spoke a few times with him, I think he has the qualities to be an outstanding manager and when I speak to him he looks like he enjoys it very much, so I wish him well.
Patrick is now 39 I think, that’s a good age. He is old enough to start. It depends what he wants to do with his career as a manager.
Wenger also had a word of warning and quipped about the volatile nature of management.
Does he want to work with the youth level, or does he want to come up to hell with us, he has to decide that.
Wenger was speaking ahead of the visit of Everton this weekend, a game which Aaron Ramsey will be miss following his injury against Bayern Munich.
The Welsh international has had a busy schedule with the recent international break, playing in both of Wales’ games despite already qualified before facing Andorra. Wenger stated he didn’t communicate with Chris Coleman about resting Ramsey.
No [I didn’t speak to Chris Coleman]. I cannot call every national coach after every game to ask them not to play the players. We had a conversation about Theo, because England were playing on an artificial pitch. In the end the decision was left to Roy Hodgson, but I didn’t speak to Coleman.
