It is easy to see why Nick Cushing has emerged as Arsenal’s primary target to fill the head coach role vacated by Jonas Eidevall last week.
The Athletic reported on Wednesday that the New York City FC manager is top of Arsenal’s list as they look for someone to revive their season after a difficult few weeks.
The 39-year-old has been with the New York men’s team since 2020 when he joined as an assistant from Manchester City Women. Cushing was well respected in his seven years as City head coach, winning one FA Cup and two League Cups, as well as delivering their only Women’s Super League (WSL) title in 2016.
He is an attractive candidate because he has both WSL experience and wider professional managerial credentials. He has worked with big-name players — and been popular with them — and shown he can win trophies. But at the same time, he has not managed in women’s football since 2020 and he has hardly pulled up trees in MLS. Arsenal’s desire to recruit him shows how difficult the managerial market is for elite women’s clubs.
Recruiting a new manager is a tough process for any big team but within the women’s game it is particularly complicated. There are only a handful of elite clubs and an even smaller number receive the level of attention that Arsenal do. It is no exaggeration to say this is one of the biggest jobs in women’s football.
The number of candidates it is even feasible to assess is vanishingly small. Two of the biggest recent managerial moves in the past year were Barcelona manager Jonatan Giraldez heading to Washington Spirit in the NWSL and Chelsea persuading Sonia Bompastor to move on from Lyon. They were seen as two of the best in the world but neither had been a head coach for more than three years. That demonstrates how hard it is to find managers with the requisite talent and experience.
Cushing himself is an example of another issue that the women’s game has — brain drain. He decided to leave Manchester City after seven years to become the assistant manager of a men’s club within the City Football Group network. At the time, his choice came across as a snub. He left in the middle of the season, with City a point ahead of Chelsea at the top of the league.
No one could have known when his decision was originally announced that the whole campaign would end up being curtailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. City eventually missed out on the title to Chelsea on a points-per-game basis. The crucial match was a 3-3 draw between the two teams, the last fixture played in that WSL season, with City managed by interim coach Alan Mahon.
The optics of a manager returning to the WSL four years after he left are not great but Cushing does represent a safer bet than plenty of other options out there. Big teams appear particularly unwilling to offer coaches from smaller sides the opportunity to attempt to step up. Internal recruitment, as was the case with Manchester City when Cushing left and as Barcelona have done repeatedly, tends to be preferred, with clubs unimpressed with the managerial market.
That has a knock-on effect on the number of women in management, with coaches tending to move from boys’ academy roles into the women’s team internally within clubs. This is exactly what happened with Cushing and his City replacement Gareth Taylor. But women are far less likely to be working in boys’ academy setups, making it a difficult pathway for them. This year marks a decade since Arsenal last had a woman in charge.
There is no doubt that Cushing’s CV fits the bill and any assessment of his time at Manchester City largely depends on how good a manager you think Emma Hayes is. Cushing predominantly played second fiddle to her Chelsea team, something Arsenal will be able to appreciate. He turned a side of talented England internationals into a good team but not a dominant one.
With the league having moved on as much as it has, the barriers to success have never been higher. The WSL requires far more than setting up a good group of players competently. Managing in MLS will have given Cushing experience of this but a win record of 35 per cent over the past two years hardly gets the blood pumping.
Then there is the delay that Arsenal may have to be willing to accept if they are to land Cushing. With New York City participating in the MLS play-offs and Cushing under contract until 2025, patience might be required at Arsenal while that plays out, all while negotiating with City Football Group for a coach they have spent the past two decades developing. And that is assuming Cushing even wants the job.
It is understandable Arsenal want to take the time to get the appointment right, and appear confident in interim coach Renee Slegers’ ability to steer the ship. Their 2-0 win against West Ham United at the weekend showed their issues in attack did not disappear with Eidevall’s exit. They looked slow and ponderous in possession, with little idea as to how to break West Ham down.
Slegers was Eidevall’s assistant at previous club Rosengard, as well as Arsenal, so it is unsurprising the team looks almost exactly the same right now. Maybe, with more time at the helm, she can reinvigorate them but with important WSL and Champions League fixtures coming after the international break — against Manchester United and Juventus — Arsenal risk writing off their entire season if they allow things to drift.
The club’s high-level decision-making over the past couple of years means the identification of Cushing has come with extra scepticism. There have been poor transfer dealings, while giving Eidevall a three-year deal after they failed to make the Champions League group stage last season was questionable and these things have eroded trust within the fanbase. The pressure is on general manager Clare Wheatley to make the right choices.
The reality is that finding good managers within the women’s game, particularly mid-season, is really hard. But Arsenal’s stature and current position are making a tough job even tougher.
(Top photo: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
