Former Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira has revealed that he is still disappointed that he wasn’t able to start his coaching career at the club.
The former French international spent just under a decade with the Gunners between 1996 and 2005, making almost 300 league appearances for the club and winning countless trophies including three Premier League titles.
However, despite many expecting Arsene Wenger to bring in his former captain and midfield general as a coach in some capacity, that phone call never arrived which in turn forced Vieira to look at other options and pursue his coaching career away from north London.
“I was a bit disappointed not to get a call at the end of my career,” he told L’Equipe. “Arsene has the right to think you don’t deserve it, that you’re not ready. But I think there’s always a way to open the door.
“As a player I wanted to go as high as possible. It’s the same now. My dream is to manage one of Europe’s biggest teams one day.”
Vieira is currently manager of New York City FC, but having now built up a connection with Manchester City, he’ll hope to eventually return to the Premier League and manage the first team one day.
Naturally, with Pep Guardiola only just appointed this past summer, it’s unlikely that that will happen any time soon, but ultimately it looks as though that’s the path that the World Cup winner will eventually follow.
Whether or not Wenger gets in touch with him in the coming years about returning to Arsenal remains to be seen, but based on the comments above, there is undoubtedly still a lot of frustration and disappointment from Vieira’s side over how the situation played out when he hung his boots up.