The sporting director's departure could hardly have come at a worse moment after poor results and a big January window looming
The sporting director's departure could hardly have come at a worse moment after poor results and a big January window loomingto leave them seven points off the top, and more bad news broke on Monday when it was revealed that sporting director Edu would be leaving the club. We are only 10 games in, and Arsenal are already fighting to save their season.
Of course, much of the planning and scouting is done by a far larger team and further in advance than just a few weeks. But football is a constantly evolving business– clubs rarely plan January transfers far in advance because player values are often inflated to exploit panic in the mid-season market – and injury and loss of form have exposed Arsenal in areas they might previously have been comfortable.
“So how do you deal with that situation? You have to be strong and sometimes you have to make decisions,” Edu told thepodcast earlier this year. “You can go strong and try to let those players go or your project is going to take, instead of three or four years, maybe seven, eight or nine.”Within three years, Edu was promoted from technical director to become Arsenal’s first-ever sporting director, the club keen to ward off interest from at least two other European clubs including PSG.
As Edu’s influence grew, that changed. “By the end , the 21s and first team do a lot together now. They’ll train side by side, just in case if anyone needs anyone, they can go over and it makes life a lot easier.” More likely is that the Gunners will have to run a headhunting operation, a process that could take some time and as Manchester United found out in poaching Dan Ashworth from Newcastle, is not often a straightforward one. Monchi, the highly experienced Spaniard thriving in a similar role at Aston Villa, would be a choice that might spark a similar dispute. Hiring, for example, Paolo Maldini would not come with those strings.
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