Wow! They were not joking, were they? When Ivan Gazidis told fans at the beginning of April this year that they should expect big changes whether Arsene Wenger leaves or not and that the then-67-year-old Frenchman would reinvent himself and become a “catalyst for change”, few believed him. Since then, Arsenal have gone on to totally reshape their back room, bringing in not just new blood for the sake of it, but some of the best that the football world has to offer. After two more shocking moves this week, Arsenal will be heading into January with a host of fresh faces (and a pair of “diamond eyes”) to help solve their current contract predicaments.
First, the club addressed their injury problems with Darren Burgess, a fitness guru they wanted so badly, they let him return to Australia to finish out the season with Port Adelaide before committing full-time to the Gunners. The club then took former Team Sky legal expert Huss Fahmy to improve their contract negotiations just three days later, followed almost as quickly by fiery former goalkeeper Jens Lehmann as a new first-team coach. However, it wasn’t until half of November had elapsed before the club would make what might be their most important addition: Sven Mislintat from Borussia Dortmund. If recent reports are to be believed, he could soon be joined by Barcelona Director of Football, Raul Sanllehi, who would sign on as the club’s Head of Football Operations. He and Gazidis already share a good relationship, and all reports point to his arrival in short order. Taken individually, these signings are each sound investments, but together they show that the Gunners have done some serious self-evaluation and now have a plan.
It is clear that Ivan Gazidis is largely behind the moves, and he has finally gotten his wish to give Wenger more support in aspects of the club that have atrophied over the last few years. The club is anticipating the eventual departure of the legendary Frenchman, and have chosen to build a world-class backroom staff to help ease the transition into the tenure of the next manager. Reports are that Mislintat will be working closely with last season’s theft from Leicester City, first team video scout Ben Wrigglesworth to settle into his role, and may form an extremely potent recruitment duo with Sanllehi if he too is confirmed.
So what does this mean for the club? Well, to begin with, chief negotiator Dick Law and former chief scout Steve Rowley are on their way out. While both have come to be known as key Wenger allies behind the scenes, it has been clear for several years that, on the transfer market, in particular, the club have fallen behind their rivals. It seems every year the club is surprised by the prices of players, and then eat up the rest of the window trying to avoid losing every penny possible in the deal. Even in their more successful transfer periods, it still seems like the club is only capable of wrapping up one deal quickly with the rest following at a snail’s pace. Meanwhile, fans wake up in the morning to find Manchesters City and United have spent even more money on more players, willing to overpay if it means landing their preferred target.
The club used to be able to counterbalance their rivals’ aggression with shrewd dealings for lesser-known players, but recently that has not yielded the same value as it once did. Whenever a Premier League club is involved, especially one as well-heeled as Arsenal, the price of a player immediately goes up. We saw this with both big-money signings last season, Granit Xhaka and Shkodran Mustafi, who were both valued closer to £20 million before each going for almost double that amount. Good players, no doubt, but are they good enough to constitute being the fourth and fifth most expensive signings in the club’s storied history? Many fans are unconvinced.
Arsenal may never bring themselves to spend as freely as their rivals, but the signing of Mislintat, in particular, goes a long way toward improving in this area. Nicknamed “diamond eyes” for his ability to spot potential in young players that others might not see, and he has been a part of the extremely competent backroom staff that has taken Dortmund from the brink of insolvency to one of the most perpetually exciting, young and talented squads in all of football. He is responsible for spotting Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang back when he was just a winger with an abundance of pace but little else, as well as Ousmane Dembele, Mats Hummels, Christian Pulisic and Robert Lewandowski and many, many more. What he has done at the club is nothing short of remarkable, and while he was far from on a shoestring budget when looking to sign players for Dortmund, he will surely have even more resources at his disposal, including data analytics and as much money as could be required to run the scouting department.
Ironically, Arsenal fans can thank everyone’s favourite trendy pick to replace Wenger, Thomas Tuchel, for the arrival of Mislintat in the first place (which means I am sorry to disappoint, but that’s probably not going to happen now). Last season, Tuchel became incensed with the club’s lack of commitment to holding on to its best players to challenge for the title and lost his battle in January to bring his own preferred target, Atletico Madrid’s Oliver Torres to the club. The resulting fall out left a distraught Mislintat banned from the training ground and from seeing several players and staff members that were essential to his connection with the club. He was a Dortmund man through and through, but this conflict finally led him to consider other options. Mislintat famously turned down Bayern Munich on multiple occasions, and there will be an awful lot of jealous glances cast in the Gunners’ direction for their coup.
Arsenal may not have the money that Manchester City does, but for the first time in 20 years, they have a new plan for how they want to move forward. The idea seems to be to mimic the strong power structures at other top-notch clubs that are able to withstand the changing of a manager without falling into disarray. The club can be called stagnant no longer, as they now have one of the most progressive, talent evaluating minds in all of football to help inject fresh blood into the fold. If he is joined by Sanllehi, as has been reported, then we can expect a dynamic recruitment team, in which Arsenal have one for unearthing gems and another for landing the big-time targets. Ivan Gazidis has taken a ton of heat from Arsenal supporters over the years for his role in the club’s apparent stagnation, but it’s about time he actually did get a little credit. He stuck to his word with the fans, giving them the changes that the club desperately needed for so long.
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