Arsenal added Florian Bluchel to their scouting network in 2021, a German talent spotter who spent over a decade at Bayern Munich first as a performance analyst and then as a scout.
During that time Bluchel worked with some great managers. From Bundesliga legend Jupp Heynckes to Pep Guardiola, Bluchel has exprienced a variety of coaches with different approaches and philosophies.
Now at Arsenal, he works alongside someone he describes as “the student of Pep Guardiola” in Mikel Arteta. Speaking to Tribalfootball.com, Bluchel went on to describe the influence Guardiola had on Arteta.
He said: “He [Arteta} was at Manchester City and you feel like he has the same approach as Pep – really analysing the players deeply but also having a good connection with the young players. He’s making players better.”
Bluchel believes this analytic approach from Guardiola and Arteta to football (which he likens to being a chess master) is a key difference to Hansi Flick and Jupp Heynckes’s approach to management – which he says is more about togetherness and working as a team.
But one common theme that all managers have in Bluchel’s mind is: “They all have the emotional connection with the players which makes [all] these coaches very special.”
The German continued: “If we could put two together, I would put together Arteta and Pep and on the other side Hansi Flick and Heynckes because they were more forming a team, a team together and the others (Guardiola and Arteta} are more analysing the football on the pitch like chess masters.
“But on the other side they also have the emotional connection with the players which makes these coaches very special and maybe the mixture between all of them is Jurgen Klopp – if we’re to fufill the whole picture of different coaches.”
Interestingly, despite not getting the chance to meet him, as Bluchel says, he sees Liverpool manager Klopp as “the mixture between all of them. I know about people who worked with him and he’s the mixture between them.”
– adapted by Harry Dunnett
