Home again: Freddie Ljungberg (re)joins Arsenal as U23 coach

In a time where everything is changing at Arsenal - new coach, new assistants, new front office, a bunch of rumored new players - it’s nice to see some things either not changing or to see the occasional familiar face coming back into the fold.

The latter is what happened today - Arsenal sorta-legend-and-generally-awesome-dude Freddie Ljungberg has elected to continue his coaching career at Arsenal, taking control of the Under-23 squad. Freddie started said career at Arsenal with the U15’s, then left to become Andries Jonker’s assistant coach at VfL Wolfsburg. That gig lasted as long as Jonker did - seven months - before Jonker and his entire staff were shown the door in September of 2017.

Freddie takes charge at a pretty pivotal time for the academy - with all the rumors of Arsenal having small transfer budgets, it’s probably not a stretch to think that they’ll want to lean on the academy and its graduates as much as it possibly can. While it’s not realistic to think they’ll turn out a whole starting eleven, hopefully Freddie can take what he knows from his time as a player and meld that with his time as a coach and produce three or four guys who can make regular contributions to the Arsenal first team.

Welcome home, Freddie.