I go on vacation and what happens with Arsenal? They sign a kid from Brazil, strike a deal with another kid in France, and hire a new Technical Director.
I’m actually rather Sanguine, this all seems like stuff that should have been done years ago: buying prospects, building the academy, dividing up Wenger’s responsibilities, and modernizing the club. Instead of one (amazing, incredible) guy basically in charge of everything like we had for 22 years, we now have more specialized folks in charge of things that they are (supposed to be) good at.
Maybe this is something you all have already talked about and you have a grasp on how the management structure is going to work. But I had to go back and read the old hiring announcements, the restructure from last summer, plus the fact that Sven left this season, before I got a clearer picture of management at the club. What each of them would be doing.
On the day he was hired, Sanllehi was appointed to – “Raul’s appointment is another important step in developing the infrastructure we need at the club to take everything we do to the next level. Raul has extensive contacts across the football world and has been directly involved in some of the biggest transfers in Europe in recent years. We look forward to him bringing that expertise to Arsenal.” At the time, Sanllehi was brought in to basically negotiate deals with Mislintat told to identify players.
But in January, Sanllehi was promoted, Mislintat demoted, and Rafa Honigstein reported that “According to club sources, Sanllehi, the former director of football at Barcelona, favoured a recruitment policy based on his extensive network of contacts throughout Europe, while Mislintat had been tasked by Gazidis to follow the kind of analytical and stats-based approach that saw 19-year-old midfielder Matteo Guendouzi join from French second-division club Lorient and 22-year-old Uruguay international Lucas Torreira arrive from Sampdoria.” So, it seems that Sanllehi is in charge of player recruitment in addition to being basically the big boss under Kroenke.
Vinai Venkatesham is still and always has been in charge of the money. This is a much needed area for Arsenal to grow. According to a series of tweets by The Swiss Ramble, Arsenal have left a lot of money on the table during the Gazidis administration through poor deals and poor money management. If Vinai can get the salary down, the sponsorships up, and spend some of that unused capital on building the team, he will have done a good job.
Unai Emery’s job is exceptionally clear: he’s the coach. His job is to make the players better, make the team better, and get Arsenal playing good football. If he has anything to do with recruitment it’s as a member of the team that selects players, not as someone who has control. He can probably ask for certain positions and recommend players that he would like to work with or wouldn’t like to work with but other than that his job is to coach.
Which brings us to Edu Gaspar. According to the official announcement on the dot com: “In his role as technical director, Edu will coordinate the work of our first-team coaching group, the academy and player scouting and recruitment in order to oversee the constant building up and efficient strengthening of our squad.” That sounds a lot like what Sanllehi does (recruitment) but was further defined by Sanllehi as “His arrival is the final and very important part of the jigsaw in our development of a new football infrastructure to take us forward. He will be working closely with Unai Emery and the first-team coaches, and will play a relevant role leading our football vision and ensuring we have – and follow – a solid philosophy through all our football activities.”
Edu will be a sort of bridge between Sanllehi’s recruitment arm, Emery’s coaching arm, the academy, and player recruitment. So, I guess he’ll be one of those guys who is at all the meetings.
As for the two signings: ok, cool. I hope that the Brazilian kid is great and wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Edu recommended him. The recruitment of the other guy is weirdly getting a ton of praise from Gooners on the internet because everyone has been convinced that he will be worth £100m in two years or something. Again, ok, cool. I honestly hope that happens and that we are able to keep him for at least a year before he leaves us on a free to get paid a billion dollars a week at PSG/Man City or whatever.
It was always going to take years to restructure after Wenger. That means both management and players. So, with this new management team in place, I suspect that they will turn their attentions to the squad. Ornstein reported yesterday that Arsenal are after a first team center back, a center mid, a winger, and that they will go back in for Tierney (named specifically). Somehow they are also supposed to do all of this for under £45m.
Reading between the lines, what I suspect Orny is saying is that Arsenal are going to sell a number of players. Let’s hope so. I also hope that we start to see some real recruitment happening. The season starts in just five weeks.
I’m weirdly optimistic about the new direction we’re going. However, I’ve been weirdly optimistic each one of the 14 seasons since I became an Arsenal fan
I’m genuinely, unironically, happy for you, but personally i’ve never been more resigned to the idea that Arsenals future is incredibly bleak.
Our absolute worst time under Wenger brought us 3 FA Cups in 5 years.
I just don’t see us getting anywhere near that in the next 10 years.
I genuinely hope I’m wrong.
I’m with you. Stan Kroenke could not give two sh*ts about this team winning anything, he only cares insomuch that it produces a profit. This move to young players is only economic. We are the new Aston Villa. And we can’t shift anyone! Ozil, Mustafi, Kolasinac…. they’re all going to be with us in the fall. Instead we’ll send off Bielek for a weeks supply of Gatorade and can Reiss-Neilson in favour of some crap Madrid winger.
I agree with you completely Jeremy!
My first memory of an Arsenal match was the 2006 CL Final. Since then I have also been weirdly optimistic, but my unfounded optimism has pretty much been worn away between Cesc leaving for Barcelona and the season in which Leicester won the league.
My first memory is the game right before yours. But I’ve been Realistic (TM) since Lehmann’s red card against Barca.
I read Fever pitch in’98. I should have bought AFC low right then. But it was still too hard to watch football in the States. So I waited until ESPN and Setanta (briefly) made it easier. Which was buying Arsenal at the top of the market. We got in just in time to see the thing crater.
Realistically, we’ve been in this hole awhile. Getting rid of Wenger is when they should have stopped digging, but inertia and muscle memory…
I do feel like if the digging hasn’t stopped, it’s slowed considerably. I could understand if that’s what passes for optimism around here these days. I do think they may be, finally, headed slowly up.
My first real memory of Arsenal is trying to understand which ‘country’ they played for and my sister inviting me to her house for the 88/89 Liverpool decider.
I fell asleep.
It’s one of the reasons i’ll always feel like a glory hunter ha ha.
Ha!
My first arsenal game was the game bergkamp got redcard in 1997.
I had an amazing ride since then with arsenal.even the trophyless years 2005 to 2014 , i was happy on the beautiful game . But now it is not beautiful not fruitful… still is living the hope that something will happen
This makes me feel good. Not in the saccharine, knowingly foolish jolt of optimism I get when we are linked with a top-tier player, but in a measured, “just-remember-things-change-much-more-slowly-than-we-can-even-perceive” sort of way.
Great post Tim
The last few years of the Wenger/Gazidis era were a disaster from both a financial and football standpoint. They left the squad with a high payroll but threadbare in terms of talent and financially in a very poor situation. Arsene will always be a legend based in the first part of his reign but he stayed around for at least 2 contracts longer then he should have. It was always going to take time to bring the clubs infrastructure into the 21st century and rebuild our front office and a few missteps were inevitable but hopefully things are now headed in the right direction.
You know, I wish Arsene had gone after the first FA Cup win after the trophy drought. It would have been a great moment to move on after finally winning Arsenal another trophy.
But the guy won us 2 more trophies after that, so I can’t really begrudge him staying on an extra few years under the circumstances.
He left making Arsenal the most successful Fa Cup team in history and I can’t begrudge him that.
Oh, I can begrudge him a little. That’s not unreasonable.
It was so dumb to offer him another contract in 2016.
Again very correct. Let’s put success to trophies. So we wait. It’s only one season but nothing has changed. Can’t see where to hang my optimism in the field of play.
When Clarence Clemmons passed, The Boss couldn’t replace him with just another sax player. Springsteen had to get an entire horn section to replace The Big Man, including C’s nephew who – go figure – happens to be a great saxophonist.
The E Street Band is still going almost 50 years on and despite current ownership, so must The Arsenal.
Yessssss…great Bossworld tie-in.
i think you give a little bit too much credit to wenger. he didn’t do everything. david dein played a huge role, not only as a football man, but an arsenal football man. when dein left the club, soon followed by keith edelman, the club failed to adequately replace their impact and that is when things fell into wenger’s lap. however, it was too much for one man, even as brilliant as wenger. no one is good at everything. wenger was great. dein and wenger together were amazing. keith edelman kept the club making big money. it was good back then but we know what they say about all good things.
I admit that Dein helped get the deals done in the era before Chelsea started buying everything.
I have to admit that I kind of dislike Dein and simultaneously can’t figure out what really happened there. This man was a great visionary, yet sold his shares when they were worth 1/10th of what they would be worth in just a few years. Surely even he knew that the TV deals were going to go through the roof imminently. He also brought in Kroenke then Usmanov, which are polar opposites and another strange decision for a man who was supposed to have keen insight into people. And finally, he seems to have misplayed everything badly: by selling his shares, he trousered £75m but that let the board basically just fire him.
If I were to suppose what happened, I would say; I think Dein wanted to be CEO or chairman (whilst also taking a huge payout for his work) and that he wanted a billionaire owner who would invest in the team. Thus, he brought in Kroenke, realized Kroenke was an awful choice, then brought in Usmanov to challenge. The board, however, resisted all of this because I think they DID realize that if they held on for 5 years or so they would make BANK BANK BANK. Which they all did. Dein was out, now forever known as “the man who brought in Kroenke”, and never again allowed to work for the club he loves.
Tragic? A bit.
dein didn’t sell his shares for money. it’s like you alluded to, he realized that kroenke wasn’t the way forward and wanted someone who would invest in the club in. however, usmanov needed shares to be considered a serious share holder and dein sold his in an attempt to get usmanov on the board. the board sacked dein and sold his actions to fans as some form of treachery.
Interesting. I always wondered why he (was) moved out when he did.
As tragic as Koscielny sacrificing his achilles, not for his own glory, but for AW.
Actually, the Saga of Koscielny is more tragic.
I really hate to be that guy, trust me, but….
I like the optimism around player sales, but it’s a bit funny to see player sales as an action by the selling team rather than buying teams. There are no links to any of our top players who people want to see sold, and there is a very big problem with basing your recruitment on possible sales. Squad building shouldn’t be defined by a factor that you are not in control of.
I think recruitment should be organised in such a way that we build our squad, without including the players we want to sell. If we want to get to a point where our squad can compete, we need to buy who we need and whenever we get the opportunity. Players that are not in the medium or long term plans of the club, can remain on the fringes of the squad.
Liverpool have had players like Ings, Sturridge, Origi, Morenoand Solanke on the fringes, while calling them up whenever there were injury concerns. But they recruited to improve on, not to replace.
I also think it was incredible for Arsene to maintain what he did in this day and age, just hated that he was so resistant to change.
Thanks for the effort Tim.
My expectations were pretty low last season so to make it more exciting I decided to throw a bit money on my predictions but this season I don’t think I’ll even do that.
We have less than exciting manager who may or may not be in his last season, a star player who told him he was $hit but can’t be moved on or bothered to bust gut for the cause, a bunch of brain dead high earners nobody wants to touch with a barge pole, and a measly transfer kitty that wouldn’t buy one top quality player let alone rebuild a top four contender.
And presiding over all this there’s a fake rug and a perverted mustache wearing Kroenke who looks more like a seventies porn flick director but with better suits.
We are so fcukt!
Out of all footballers in the club, Koscielny seemed to be the last candidate to refuse to go on tour with the squad.
Our captain chose a shocking path, the club’s statement is sharp and in rush – what is going on behind the curtains?
Can’t believe our most dedicated player (and for years my favourite one which makes the whole thing really bitter) does that, there must be much more in the story.
What is your feeling here?
strange, indeed. has any player ever “refused” to play at arsenal? why? why did the club deem it necessary to make a statement?
strange times, indeed.
He wants his cake and eat it too. Apparently he has interest from France, but only if he’s a free… so he wants to be released from his contract. That’s absurd, I don’t care who is making the request. You have a contract, honor it, or tell the teams who are interested in you to at least make some kind of token offer for you to Arsenal. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to still expect 4-5m for a 33 year old CB with crocked Achilles tendons.
I’m torn with Kosc. He’s been a both a good player and a good leader for us. And I can understand why he’d want to end his career in France.
But he still has value for us, probably has some moderate value in the market, $5-10M, and given the financial circumstances the club is currently in, it’s not realistic for him to expect to be let out of his contract for free. If we could get $5-10M that is significant. Especially since we’d certainly need to add another central defender.
What a cluster we’ve gotten into.
10M would be an extraordinary haul for Kos at this stage. We should get half that though. And I agree, 5M even for some 18 year old prospect, or to offset Saliba’s fee would go a long way. Every penny counts in this new era.
i’m not sure i buy the whole “wanted to leave on a free” jive. everyone knows that’s not how football works, especially in the current climate at arsenal, so i find that difficult to believe.
towards the end of last season, there was talk about extending koscielny’s deal; he’s currently in the last year of his contract. what’s believable is that he either wanted an extension or to be sold. he’s already missed out on a chance to be a world champion, sacrificing for arsenal. why should he sacrifice again?
when laurent was out nursing his achilles, there was another arsenal player doing the same who was about koscielny’s age and in the last year of his contract. what happened with him? arsenal, unceremoniously released cazorla. understand, considering his health and age, santi was lucky that villarreal gave him a deal. fast forward six months, another player in the last year of his contract, gets injured playing for arsenal. what happened with him? welbeck was released last month and still hasn’t found a new club.
arsenal has, historically, taken care of players when injured. however, this is a new arsenal and koscielny knows that so he’s taking care of himself. he’s not interested in being the guy to maintain that “injured arsenal player released” trend next summer. he could be injured at any time. it’s too big a risk because he KNOWS this club won’t take care of him. considering the new climate at the club, i believe his position is difficult but reasonable. the club can be angry all they’d like.
understand, i made all of this stuff up based on what i knew and what makes sense. it could be he expected the club to release their captain/starter on a free transfer a year early and this late into pre-season, but does that even sound true?
i want to reiterate, it’s not a fringe player asking to be released. it’s the club’s captain and starter in the weakest position, depth-wise, that arsenal has. no way he asked for a free transfer and if that’s the story going around, arsenal need to fire their spin doctor because he’s awful.
…or did arsenal make him promises and failed to deliver?
Interesting thoughts Joshuad, thanks for as always in-depth contribution. I guess the truth may consist of the lack of collateral from the club (no extention vs. 3year offer from Homeland) as well as latest history of no support for heavily damaged players and not delivering promises. This is a guy who never complained, played for years with career threatening on going problems and even last season left on the field with open wound instead of leaving the team on its own. Hard to believe he does the whole thing without the reasons.
So much gloom here, albeit understandable. Look, a not especially great team with a not especially good coach missed the champions league places by a point. Yes, we havent replaced Ramsey, and we won’t, in my view. We let a 28 year old goalscoring midfielder who loved the club, had been with us a decade, was a potential captain and had a good all round game, leave for free because we wanted to avoid paying him Aubameyang’s wages.
Maybe we’ve reached our low water mark in terms in inept management. Raul’s way looks a lot less warm and fuzzy. Amy Lawrence says that Edu, amiable as his demeanor is, does not suffer fools. Looks like guys who don’t sign new contracts will be sold. No one (not even Koscielny) is strong arming the club into a position of disadvantage. Everyone will know the rules, and no one will try it on.
Maybe that’s what we need.
Koscielny? Love him, but he’s in the wrong. In many cases, a club would let a servant of his stature leave on a free, and it’s kind of unfortunate that we are ina position where we can’t afford to do that. But this management looks the ruthless, unsentimental one that Arsenal needs post Wenger. I also like the fact that they came right out and said Kosc refused the travel, instead of throwing PR spin on it.
The Arsenal will be fine. Bitter medicine period ahead, though. The one fit I’m not sure about is Emery. We need a coach who gets more out of the players than the sum of their parts… a Klopp kind of figure. That would go a long way towards turning around Arsenal.