Ljungberg resigned to short Arsenal reign

Freddie Ljungberg has hinted that he does not expect to continue as Arsenal’s interim head coach for much longer, saying it would not be easy for him to lead the team for “months and months” without a proper coaching team.

Ljungberg is unable to bring in his own coaching staff until Arsenal’s executives have decided who will replace the sacked Unai Emery permanently. The Swede has been assisted by Per Mertesacker, the academy manager, but does not have the same manpower at his disposal as Emery had.

“The club have said I have to wait until they make a decision, so yeah, I can’t do anything at the moment [regarding the coaching staff ],” Ljungberg said. “I have Per, but at the same time he is academy manager, but he is helping me with coaching.

“The club has said when they make a decision that’s it, or I am obviously leaving, or maybe then we can do something with the staff. But it is up to the club.”

Asked if it was best for the team that a quick decision was made on the managerial appointment, Ljungberg said: “It’s far from me to say. If you look at the person who was here before, he had a lot of staff and maybe I don’t have so many. So if you keep on going like that for months and months, it’s not so easy. But that’s totally up to the club.”

Ljungberg also said he would learn a lot about his players in the coming weeks if he was still at the club, as Arsenal face a tough run of

Short-staffed: Freddie Ljungberg is frustrated by a lack of backroom personnel fixtures. They meet Manchester City tomorrow before games against Chelsea and Manchester United during the festive period.

“It is a very tough run of games that we have, so of course we will learn a lot,” Ljungberg said. “I will if I am here, or you guys [the media] will learn a lot about our players.”

Meanwhile, defender Sokratis has said Arsenal must do the “dirty work” against City if they are to achieve a result that would allow them to “explode” back into life this season.

“Sometimes, these games are games where you can explode,” Sokratis said. “I think we need one good game in our home to explode and I hope we will have that on Sunday.

“The team has quality. But to show the quality you have to do the dirty work. If you do the dirty work and you’re organised. you can win, you can do a lot of things. But first of all you have to work on intensity, pace and organisation.”