Arsenal sack coach after 30 years with the club

Arsenal v West Ham United - Barclays Premier League - Emirates Stadium - 9/8/15 Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger looks dejected as assistant manager Steve Bould looks on [Reuters, Eddie Keogh]

Arsenal have sacked under-23s coach Steve Bould after 30 years of service at the club.

The 58-year-old has been in the youth team role for the past two seasons having previously been an integral part of Arsene Wenger's backroom team.

Bould spent 11 years with Arsenal as a player from 1988-99 before returning to the club as a coach in 2001.

After more than a decade working with the academy, Bould was promoter to be Wenger's No.2 after the retirement of assistant manager Pat Rice.

He held that role up to and beyond the end of Wenger's reign in 2018, but was reassigned to the academy just a year later in a job swap with Freddie Ljungberg.

By that time Unai Emery was in the hotseat and it is thought Bould preferred to move away from first team duties to take charge of his own crop of the club's youngsters.

As a player he won three league titles with Arsenal, including Wenger's first for the club in 1998, as well as two FA Cups, the League Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup.

As reports The Athletic, academy director Per Mertesacker will now be tasked with finding a replacement for Bould, who becomes the latest victim to the huge restructuring going on at the club.

It was only in August last year that 55 staff were made redundant by the club, including members of their scouting network.

A year before that former head of youth development Steve Morrow left of his own accord.

Several of Arsenal's current squad have come through the club's Hale End academy, including England international Bukayo Saka, midfielder Emile Smith Rowe and rising talent Folarin Balogun.