NICKLAS BENDTNER has opened the door to a potential Arsenal return – as a MANAGER.
The madcap Danish striker, 33, has announced his retirement from playing football after 18 months without a club.
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But Bendtner has now revealed he is taking coaching courses as he wants to remain in football.
He spent nine seasons with the Gunners, scoring 45 goals in 171 appearances.
Bendtner also played for Birmingham, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, Juventus, Wolfsburg, Rosenborg and FC Copenhagen.
During his career, he landed a jail term for assaulting a taxi driver, blew millions playing poker, fathered a child with a baroness and was slapped with a huge fine for showing off his Paddy Power boxers during a game.
The striker split with long-term girlfriend Philine Roepstorff, 28, last month – with the model since matched with Spider-Man actor Tom Holland on the exclusive celebrity dating app, Raya.
Hometown club Copenhagen released Bendtner in December 2019.
And the former forward said: “I miss football every day, but I’m well aware there is a cut-off date in this job.
“I’m going to have to spend time understanding that it’s really over now.
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“I have to find something else to care about, and find something to give me what football has given me all these years.
“I’ve been playing football all my life, and it just stops overnight. Suddenly I’m outside the game, and I want to do a lot of things.
“But this has not been possible because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The rush you get from being inside a stadium is impossible to get anywhere else.
“Football is such a big part of my life that I can’t step away from it.
“That is why I am taking coaching courses. I hope this can give me as much, or maybe even more, than I got from being a player.
“In this way I still want to be part of football.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
