‘I Will Make Arsenal Difficult For Arteta’- Mertesacker Vows

Per Mertesacker never dreamed of becoming a footballer. For so many of those he played alongside and those he now manages as head of Arsenal’s academy the sport is an escape, a glory or bust route to a life they could never have imagined before.

Mertesacker, who is Arsenal Academy boss, said his job is to give manager Mikel Arteta selection headaches.

Speaking with Ian Wright on his YouTube channel, Mertesacker vowed to bring through youngsters that will have enough quality to play in the first team.

Joe Willock, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson and Bukayo Saka are some of the youngsters making their marks this season under Arteta. And Mertesacker has vowed to ensure that this trend will continue.

In his words “We are really keen on giving Mikel Arteta a lot of headaches, you know.

“He must be thinking, ‘What’s going on in the academy?’ Every year there is the potential two, three players who can step onto that court.

“But I know his standards, I know what he stands for, so I need to prepare the players really well so when they step into the first-team environment they are ready and prepared,” Mertesacker said.

Football has certainly given Mertesacker that but for the 35-year-old it was never the all-consuming obsession it was for others.

“At most, football was Plan B,” Mertesacker recounts in his autobiography, Big Friendly German. “Plan A was doing my Abitur – the German equivalent of A-Levels  and a sports degree in Hannover; the idea of going pro wasn’t a priority – not even close to being one.

“For me, the most important thing was to enjoy playing. It was my hobby and – despite my father practically forcing me into it at the age of four my passion.”

Football had played an important role in Mertesacker’s childhood but not an all-encompassing one. There was tennis, table tennis, roller skating and swimming. A journalist once wrote that the giant, slow centre-back with a dodgy left knee should stick to acquatic sports, at age 14 that injury seemed destined to bring his footballing prospects to an early end.

Mertesacker was not a highly-regarded young prospect who was always destined for the top but by the time he called time on his career he had won a World Cup, three FA Cups and the DFB Pokal.