Freddie Ljungberg will bring positive football to Arsenal interim role

Freddie Ljungberg is now Arsenal’s interim manager, and based on his time with the u23 team, you can expect him to bring some positivity to their play.

Finally, times are exciting once more at Arsenal Football Club, as Freddie Ljungberg takes up the interim management role while the Gunners hierarchy sorts out a replacement for the departing Unai Emery. Of course, Ljungberg could very well be in the mix for the permanent manager role, and he has the rare opportunity of having a first-hand audition, as the club heads into a busy Christmas period.

While Ljungberg has no previous top-level management experience, he has spent a year managing the Arsenal u23 side in the Premier League 2, where he impressed mightily, creating a strong bond with some of the up-and-coming youngsters at the club, such as Bukayo Saka and Joe Willock, who are now in the first-team.

Ljungberg was one of Emery’s assistants this season, but his style of play seems to be vastly different from the Spaniard’s, at least based on what we saw last season in the PL2.

The Swede, who was a crucial part of Arsenal’s success in the early 2000s under Arsene Wenger, is very much a modern manager, who puts serious emphasis on wide players, as well as dynamic midfielders. This is where the likes of Willock and Saka could thrive under Ljungberg in the first team, along with some of the more senior players such as Pepe, who is aching for a manager to get the best out of him.

Ljungberg also prefers to play out from the back, as Emery also did, but he also prefers his teams to press high up the pitch, the way most modern, successful sides do these days. Emery, while promising from the start that he wanted Arsenal to be a pressing side, rescinded his promises and had them doing no such thing towards the end of his time at the club.

We’ve seen it during his time as the assistant manager, but Ljungberg is a very lively character on the sidelines and loves to get into it with the officials. Whether that’s a good quality or not, depends on your own opinion.

We could see the likes of Robbie Burton and Tyreece John-Jules make their Arsenal first-team debuts under Ljungberg, as they are 2 players he rates highly and used consistently last season with the u23’s.

The first test for Arsenal under Freddie Ljungberg comes this Sunday against Norwich City, as they look to get their season back on track following 7 matches without a win in all competitions.