 |
| Carlos Cuesta’s work at Arsenal includes a heavy focus on improving tactical understanding among individual players.Photograph: PA Images/Alamy |
Mikel Arteta is poised to lose one of his key lieutenants at Arsenal, with his 29-year-old assistant Carlos Cuesta expected to join Parma to take a first head coach’s role.
The Spaniard, regarded as one of the world’s best young coaches, flew to Italy on Wednesday to finalise his appointment. Cuesta is in line to replace Cristian Chivu, who left for Inter to take over from Simone Inzaghi, and would become the second-youngest head coach in Serie A history.
Cuesta joined Arsenal from Juventus in 2020 after starting his coaching career at Atlético Madrid in 2014 as an 18-year-old and has become one of Arteta’s closest confidantes, with a heavy focus on improving tactical understanding among individual players. Cuesta was heavily linked with Norwich last season and is understood to have attracted widespread interest from other clubs in the Championship and beyond.
He is believed to have been tempted by the challenge of being the youngest manager in Europe’s top five leagues and trying to return Parma to the top half of Serie A, the club having finished 16th last season after being promoted. Arteta said last year that he would not stand in Cuesta’s way should his assistant want to leave, although Cuesta was one of five members of Arsenal’s coaching staff who signed extensions until 2027 in April. His fellow assistant Albert Stuivenberg and the first-team coach Miguel Molina were among the others.
“If that’s the will?” Arteta said of forcing someone to stay. “You cannot do that. I wouldn’t, no. With the staff as well, everybody needs to feel there is a path, there is a development plan for everyone. People don’t want to do the same thing for three, four, five years. It is a way to incentivise and inspire other people and then to explore because you don’t really know the limit of a person unless you expose him to certain things.”
Arsenal are preparing to make their move for a striker having held talks with representatives of Benjamin Sesko and Viktor Gyökeres and their respective clubs, RB Leipzig and Sporting. It is understood that Leipzig value Sesko at between €80m (£68.4m) and €100m and are open to allowing him to leave if they can agree a deal, but Arsenal have yet to make a formal offer for the Slovenia striker.
Gyökeres has expressed a preference to play in the Champions League for Arsenal rather than join Manchester United. The Sweden striker is thought to have been angered by Sporting’s insistence that his £85m release clause be met after talks with Arsenal’s sporting director, Andrea Berta.
Berta also held talks with representatives of the Spain forward Nico Williams in one of his first acts after he was appointed at the end of March. Arsenal are believed to have accepted defeat in pursuit of Williams, who is thought to favour a move to Barcelona.
- Ed Aarons
