5 things the next Arsenal manager should look to do

After 22 years of being at the helm of affairs at North London's premier club, Arsene Wenger's announcement yesterday that he would step down at the end of the season has brought relief and sadness in equal measure.

The early part of Le Professeur's time in English football was one of innovation, new ideas and technical improvements that have now become commonplace among footballing institutions. His focus on technique, improved diets, and physical training was second to none and gave what was a staid, lifeless footballing culture new life.

#MerciArsène pic.twitter.com/bjP0wLMgee

— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) April 20, 2018

The second part of his tenure following the move to the Emirates Stadium was less brilliant, as a failure to win or even mount a credible title challenge in 14 years saw the eroding of his legacy, even leading to the shameful "#WengerOut" campaign.

The new manager will have a lot of work to do to recalibrate the team and given the standards that Pep Guardiola has set in the Premier League this season and the fierce nature of European football, he will need to hit the ground running.

Here are five things that will need fixing at Arsenal next season:

#5 Get the defence to work again

Mustafi has been consistently mediocre for the Gunners

The strong, powerful and difficult-to-penetrate defence of Wenger's heydays at Arsenal have become a distant memory that, sadly, even the great man fails to remember. This is one of the explanations for why, as a defensive unit, the Gunners have seemed to get worse as the seasons have gone on.

The lack of a coherent plan for defending has become more glaring as the seasons have gone by as the togetherness in defence of the Invincibles era has been replaced by shoddy, scatter-brained actions which have gone on despite the not inconsiderable spending on defenders since 2004.

The new manager will need to take a good, hard look at his defensive options. Too many players in the defence: Shkodran Mustafi and Callum Chambers, for instance, have not shown enough to be worthy of playing for such a revered club and will need to be shipped out.

The formation: either 3 centre-backs or a conventional 4-man defence will need to be chosen and worked on. Some additions will need to be brought in as well, with chief scout Sven Mislintat already said to be looking at players like Freiburg's young Turkish centre-back Caglar Soyuncu.

#4 Get a new Number One

Cech's time at the top level is over, he needs to be replaced

Arsenal have, for a long time, been a club that have stuck with one classy goalie until he has needed to be replaced and that time has come again.

Petr Cech has been one of the great goalkeepers in the Premier League but it is safe to say that Chelsea and not Arsenal saw the best of the Czech shot-stopper. Brought in to add experience, know-how, and calmness to a very skittish backline, Cech has been good but not great, with the horror show of a season he has had the clearest indication that his days are numbered.

Second choice goalie David Ospina, who is the first choice for the Colombian national team, has also failed to show that he has what it takes to be the undisputed number one for a trophy-chasing team like Arsenal and the less said about third choice goalie Emiliano Martinez, the better.

The new manager will need to do better than Wenger in this regard and given that quite a few of Europe's big boys e.g. Real Madrid and Liverpool will be looking for new goalkeepers this season, urgent attention must be paid to this.

#3 Ged rid of deadwood

Players like Wilshere need to be moved on

One of Arsene Wenger's biggest strengths as a manager has been his insistence on giving players chances to prove themselves and show what they are capable of. This has helped him foster many talented young players who have gone on to become superstars (Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie, etc).

The nurturing talents of the great man have become an albatross in the final years of his Arsenal career as his trust in players has been met with disappointment. Some of the players he has given chances to have proven to be duds who need to be moved out of the club as quickly as possible.

For all the talk of passion and unfulfilled potential, Jack Wilshere has done little or nothing to show that he deserves to be part of the new team which Wenger's replacement will look to build. Injuries have taken their toll on the 26-year-old's career but his failure to improve combined with his wage demands should make it easy to move him on.

Others like Danny Welbeck (27 goals in 105 appearances), the aforementioned Mustafi and Chambers and Ospina need to be moved on and replaced with genuine quality.

#2 Get the promising talent to perform

Xhaka has sadly gone backward under Wenger's tutelage

As brilliant as Wenger has been for Arsenal, the last few years of his reign have seen the retrogression of certain talented players.

Once famed for his ability to buy players for cheap and make them brilliant, in the last few seasons, the great man's powers of persuasion and mentorship have waned and a lot of talented players who had been primed to get even better have progressed more slowly or even gone backward in some cases.

Granit Xhaka was one of the Bundesliga's prime central midfielders before his £30m move to Arsenal as his strength, long-range passing, and game intelligence saw him compared favourably to the majestic Xabi Alonso. Wenger's insistence on playing the Swiss international as a defensive midfielder has seen the 25-year-old lose what made him special and has become the butt of jokes in the Premier League as his failed attempts at tackling and marking have often gifted chances to the opposition.

Héctor Bellerín is another one who has gone backward as the fleet-footed right back who "wowed" the world when he broke into the team in the 2014/2015 season has been replaced by a hesitant, indecisive, nervous wreck who has looked equally uncomfortable either as a right back or a wingback.

The cautionary stories of Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who have since left the club are also a part of this sad part of Wenger's legacy and the new manager will need to bring all his skills to bear on the team and coax consistent top-level performances from the squad.

While the present Arsenal team isn't a Premier League-winning squad, the talent in the team deserves far better than the pathetic showing seen this season as there is enough talent in the team to at least get a top 4 spot and the new manager will have some good material to build a foundation with.

#1 Invest smartly in the Transfer Market

Suarez was one of the many top talents Arsenal missed out on

He has been popularly referred to as the Martyr of Islington and was for a long time rightly revered for his brilliance in playing the market but Wenger's last few years have been disappointing when it comes to player recruitment.

The genius who routinely picked up good/struggling players for bargains, turned them into brilliant performers (and sometimes sold them for crazy profits) has not been seen for a while. Instead, there has been a scatter-gun approach to player recruitment with core areas which are in need of reinforcement being left alone while areas that already had quality are reinforced (the purchase of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang mere months after the arrival of Alexandre Lacazette a case in point).

Until the signing of Mesut Özil from Real Madrid in 2013 for £42.4m, Wenger had been steadfast in his refusal to pay top money/salaries for stellar talent, an attitude that, while principled, saw the Gunners lose out on lots of top rated talent who could have helped the team immensely.

This is one example the new manager cannot afford to follow as football is now an arms race and spending wisely like Manchester City did this season is one of the surest ways of winning titles.

The board will also need to give him full backing and given the Gunners' finances, this should not be a problem.