Arteta adds two new faces to his backroom staff on the back of Georgson appointment

Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta has added two new faces to his backroom staff on the back of Andreas Georgson joining his coaching team from Brentford. 

The Gunners boss has brought in Carlos Cuesta, who joins the club from Juventus, and Miguel Molina, who was previously with Atletico Madrid. 

Andreas Georgson

Georgson was Brentford’s head of set pieces and individual development. Mikel Arteta has identified set pieces as a perennial problem at Arsenal and feels that there is room for improvement in this particular aspect of the game for the senior team. 

The hope is that Georgson can help the Gunners get better at set pieces in both boxes and turn what is currently a weakness into a strength. Prior to his time at Griffin Park, Georgson was an assistant coach at Swedish club Malmo. 

Carlos Cuesta

Carlos Cuesta spent time at Atletico Madrid prior to his move to Juventus to work with their Under 17 team. At the age of 23, he was coaching the Rojiblancos’ Under 13 team. He credits Twitter with helping him get a job with the Spanish giants. Cuesta ended his playing career when he was 19 to pursue a career in management. He says his goal is to win the Champions League as the manager of a club. 

The Spaniard moved to Madrid to study sports science and once he completed his education, he got on Twitter and reached out to every person who was listed as a coach at either Atletico Madrid or Real Madrid. He didn’t hear back from most but all he needed was one response and he managed to get that. Soon after, he became the youngest coach at Atletico’s academy. 

After his time with the Madrid based club, he decided to travel around Europe and meet with some of the continent’s brightest coaches so that he could soak in all their knowledge about the game. 

He went to Manchester City and saw their training facilities. He says that it made him appreciate the importance of a high performing coaching staff around the manager. According to him, that’s exactly what Pep Guardiola had done at City and the coach that he was most impressed by was Mikel Arteta, the man he will now work with. 

In an interview with Spanish media outlet El Pais in 2019, he had the following to say about Arteta:

“I highlight Mikel Arteta. He is going to be a great coach. He was also able to verify the importance of details in elite training sessions and in game analysis.”

Cuesta has had quite the journey in football and this will be his first experience as a coach of a senior team. His passion and determination to get to this point is admirable and at such a young age, his exposure in the world of football is remarkable.

Miguel Molina

Miguel Molina is a sports science specialist who was in the Atletico Madrid academy before going on to be a coach in the same environment. He was interviewed by True Faith, a Newcastle United fanzine, when Rafa Benitez was recruiting Spanish talent back in 2017. Molina provides great insights and gives us an idea of his view on the game. 

Here is an excerpt from his interview:

Interviewer: “Here in England there has always seemed to be an emphasis on playing lots of football and developing youngsters physically. I take it this isn’t the case in Spain?”

Molina: “From my experiences as a coach at Atlético de Madrid and from conversations with coaches at other academies (Villareal, Celta de Vigo, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ajax, Bayern Munich, PSG, Schalke etc), I have arrived at the conclusion that the most important thing we do is develop an understanding of the footballer as a human being, how he relates with others in different contexts.”

“From there we can then channel his behaviour to adapt to different situations. Our role as coaches, fitness coaches, assistants is to construct a methodological system of training that integrates and organises these characteristics with the aim of assimilating them to the team collective. By doing this the player takes on what we’re aiming to implement in a natural manner.”

“At the methodological level the process is guided by the tactical dimensions of the Club’s model of play. By developing an understanding of this the rest (physical, technical, psychological, socio-affective development) will follow. It is essential to have a deep knowledge of the game and, from there, to be aware of how training can optimize the acquisition of individual and collective behaviors within our unique system.” 

“Ultimately the objective is to create an organization that understands the functionality of the playing system in its different scales of interaction, from the individual to the collective. It is from this organization, and the consequent reduction of uncertainty, that creative variability and individual talent emerges.”

Jordan Reece

Arsenal have also confirmed that Jordan Reece will assume the role of head physio after Chris Morgan returned to Liverpool. Reece was promoted from head of academy physiotherapy to first team physiotherapist in 2018 and was a presence on the touchline towards the end of last season.