This Arsenal job needs more than a novice…

‘Arsenal are not settled yet on whether to go all out for an established European heavyweight like Allegri…’

We will stop you there, Jeremy Wilson of the Daily Telegraph, because we presume that something has been lost somewhere in translation from your Arsenal source to your story on the world-wide interweb. By all accounts, five-time Serie A winner and two-time Champions League finalist Massimiliano Allegri is somehow interested in taking over at Arsenal – the sixth-best team in the Premier League – but the Gunners are ‘not settled’ on whether they want that kind of manager. And by ‘that kind of manager’, we mean a bloody excellent manager with a history of winning major silverware. Well, why on earth would they?

Arsenal are making their first managerial appointment this century after their worst season this century and yet they are apparently torn between pursuing a manager like Allegri or Luis Enrique – who won a La Liga and Champions League double with Barcelona – and appointing a young, enthusiastic, untested head coach like Mikel Arteta or Patrick Vieira. Torn, that is, between pursuing the two Champions League final coaches of 2015 or two men who had not managed a game between them by 2015. It sounds so silly that we can only presume that Arsenal are playing it cool in public but are privately sending Allegri flowers, chocolates and framed pictures of his favourite horses.

Wenger called Allegri ‘competent’ when quizzed about his potential successor, but ‘competent’ is far from the right word to describe a man who is on the verge of claiming his fourth consecutive Serie A title with Juventus. Yes, he inherited a winning team from Antonio Conte, but he has taken a side underachieving in Europe (they had exited at the group stage in 2013/14, finishing behind Galatasaray) to one batting way out of their league. A team that ranked 16th in Europe in 2014 is now fifth behind only Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona. That is not a consolidation job; that is a minor miracle.

This Juventus squad has been built by Allegri; of the 13 players to have logged over 2000 minutes in all competitions this season, ten were bought by the Italian. He was responsible for signing Dani Alves and Sami Khedira on free transfers, Patrice Evra for pennies, Miralem Pjanic and Paulo Dybala for large but – in hindsight – bargain fees, making Real Madrid covet Alvaro Morata two years after selling him, turning Paul Pogba into an £89m player and helping Leonardo Bonucci become the most-revered central defender in the world. By last summer, the trust from Juventus fans was so absolute that they barely questioned Allegri’s decision to sell the long-serving Bonucci to AC Milan. He was right, of course; Juventus’ defence has not suffered and Milan will finish sixth at best.

In the week when Laurent Koscielny was ruled out for at least six months, it is worth underlining the size of the defensive job facing the new Arsenal manager. A list of those who have played at centre-half in the Premier League this season reads Koscielny (25), Mustafi (24), Monreal (19), Chambers (8), Holding (7), Mertesacker (4), Kolasinac (2), Mavropanos (2) and Coquelin (1). Or Crocked (25), Liability (24), Left-back (19), Not Quite (8), Not Quite (7), Retired (4), Left-back (2), Promising (2) and Gone (1). Arsenal need at least two new centre-halves this summer and a manager objective enough to make tough decisions with some of those who remain. For a manager like Allegri, it should be laughably easy to improve this Arsenal side.

This is not a squad that needs major surgery – few clubs across Europe can match an attacking line-up featuring Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Aaron Ramsey – but it is a lopsided squad that needs a handful of new faces at the defensive end of the pitch and an authoritative manager with a record that demands respect. This is a team that has conceded more goals than Brighton but scored more than Manchester United this season. In the hands of the right manager, and without Champions League football for one more season, Arsenal should at least be on the same level as Tottenham and Liverpool. Fifth and sixth has to be followed by fourth at least; does that sound like a job for a novice?

It is testament to Arsene Wenger and his astonishing consistency (it’s worth noting, for example, that Arsenal were ninth in those 2014 UEFA rankings and remain ninth now) that the Gunners are still seen as an attractive prospect by managers of the calibre of Allegri and Luis Enrique.  How many years after his exit will that remain the case? There may be a time for a young head coach at Arsenal but the time is absolutely not now.

Sarah Winterburn