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Boring Boring Arsenal!

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Morning all.

I write this blog at 14:54 on Monday. Just had a huge hail storm and I have spent the last 2 hours sweeping puddles of water off my new patio.

In the world of Arsenal, it feels like we are all sitting and waiting for something to happen. Waiting and sitting for something to happen. It is fairly boring.

Whether that is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s contract, the signing of Gabriel from Lille or Thomas Partey from Atletico Madrid.

It is odd. The media are not even linking us with too many players at the moment. Which would indicate:

  • Deals are pretty much done
  • We are not actually after anyone
  • Journalists sources at the club have been made redundant

I know little about Gabriel, and I would find it odd for us to sign a 3rd central defender in a single summer (Pablo Mari and William Saliba are basically new signings). But the deal does have some logic behind it, and would also highlight why Mikel Arteta was so desperate for David Luiz to sign a new deal.

Luiz spent 2 years in France for PSG and is, of course, Brazilian. He has shown during the “drink break” that he is leader. He would make an ideal father figure for both Gabriel and Saliba, helping the pair settle into England.

But signing Gabriel would leave us with 8 central defenders (Luiz, Mari, Gabriel, Saliba, Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis, Rob Holding & Calum Chambers). No team needs 8 centre backs.

In 12 months time, Luiz, Sokratis and Mustafi’s contract all expires. It might be a case of Gabriel coming available a year early then we really needed him. But rather than miss out on him we have decided to move.

It will then quicken up the urgency of getting rid of some central defenders.

I do not think there is much mileage in Luiz to Rennes. It would not make sense if he is going to be the role model for Saliba and Gabriel.

Likewise Pablo Mari is going no where.

So next season we will have Luiz, Saliba, Gabriel and Mari as our 4 “senior” central defenders. That only leaves space for one more.

Mustafi and Chambers are out until Christmas. So maybe we just need to ignore they are Arsenal players for now.

In Mustafi’s case, it will then mean we keep rehabilitate him, and then he leaves once his contract has expired in 12 months.

Maybe we might do a similar deal to how we signed Cedric Soares? That he goes on loan in January getting him off our wage bill, with a contract already in place for him at that club.

As for Chambers, the decision will be made next summer whether we keep or sell.

That still leaves Sokratis and Holding. We will be desperate to sell either.

Holding could end up at someone like Brighton, to replace Lewis Dunk if he joins Chelsea. Alternatively he might have to take a drop down and replace Nathan Ake at Bournemouth.

As for Sokratis, Arsenal might have to accept a nominal fee just to get his wages out of the club. It might even be a case of Arsenal accepting no fee.

That would leave Arsenal with Luiz, Saliba, Mari and Gabriel, with Mustafi and Chambers returning from injury.

12 months down the line, it is likely only Saliba, Mari and Gabriel would still be at the club – with an outside chance that we might keep Chambers as a home grown, 4th choice option. The 5th centre back position would then be taken by either Kostadinos Mavropanos or Zech Medley, who are both on loan, or Dan Ballard.

As for Partey, Ceballos and Aubameyang, it could end up a busy week for The Arsenal.

Keenos

Vinai to leave football operations to the experts

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It was disappointing to see the announcement of Vinai Venkatesham being promoted to the most senior Arsenal employee he met with some casual racism.

What was equally as disappointing was that much of the abuse came from South Asian Arsenal “fans”.

Vinai is one of the few people from with a BAME background in a high profile Premier League job, and yet instead of him being celebrated, people racially abuse him.

He is in his role because of his ability, not because of his ethnicity. It is a role he deserves and highlights once more that Arsenal are a diverse club.

The racism is not needed. It is never needed.

The interview with Vinai was an interesting one.

In it he describes Mike Arteta and Edu as the “two experts” and “they have a very, very clear plan about how they want to rebalance our squad in the short term, in the medium term and in the long term.”

He also mentions Per Mertesacker overseeing the academy.

It is clear that Vinai understands his own expertise and is not going to pretend to be something he is not. He will not interfere in the footballing side of Arsenal – he will leave that to the experts.

The other interesting aspect is the age of all.

Vinai is just 39 (which is surprising!), Edu 42, Arteta 38 and Per 35.

We have a young, hunger, energetic management team looking to move the side forward.

Finally, it is that time of year when people diatribe fake opening day fixture lists. And it the media are reporting on these “leaks”.

Incredible really that media outlets should be fact checking stories before writing them.

It is no surprise those papers and radio stations reporting the news. It just shows that they are more interested in reporting news that gets hits, not news that is true.

Keenos

Board back the Edu / Arteta partnership as they sack Sanllehi

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When I wrote yesterday’s blog about the board taking the lead on an overhaul of Arsenal’s structure, we were not expecting things to happen so quickly.

We had heard rumours that Arsenal were playing a management restructure at the top, but we thought this might occur after the new season restarts so as not to disrupt this summers transfer business. Instead Raul Sanllehi left the club with immediate effect.

Why did Raul leave?

Well we really don’t know.

There are plenty of accusations on twitter, including that he profited from the Nicolas Pepe deal. There is no evidence that this is true.

But what is clear that since Arsene Wenger left, the club has been dysfunctional at the top.

Wenger ran everything at the club. Fingers in every pies. It was his overlord way of running the club that saw it successful.

But it was also the power he wielded that saw the club enter a downward spiral, as he became accountable to no one.

Arsenal needed refreshing. We needed a reboot. And the club decided to go down the root completely opposite to Wenger and bring in multiple people to run things.

Firstly we had Ivan Gazidis as CEO.

Under Wenger, Gazidis had very little to do with the footballing side of the club. He was mainly dealing with the commercial side.

With Wenger gone, Arsenal firstly bought in Raul Sanllehi as Head of Football Relations and Sven Mislintat as Head of Recruitment.

This left Gazidis in charge of the commercial side, Sanllehi in charge of the football side and Mislintat in charge of the recruitment. The Head Coach (ie Unai Emery) only had to focus on coaching and picking the team.

When Gazidis left, Sanllehi was promoted as was Vinai Venkatesham. The long time Arsenal employee taking over Gazidis’s role over seeing the commercial side of the club.

Then the battle of egos began as Arsenal transfer decisions went from a committee of 3 to a committee of two. What happens when they disagree?

Well when Sanllehi and Mislintat disagrees, Sanllehi establishes his seniority and Mislintat left.

Recently Mislintat labelled the clubs recruitment department “bloated”. He also said that the clubs structure was “dysfunctional”.

The actions taken by the board – making many scouts redundant and saying goodbye to Sanllehi would indicate that they agree.

When Mislintat left, Arsenal added Edu to the clubs upper structure as Technical Director.

I as it just a case of too many cooks?

We had Sanllehi, Edu and an outspoken manager in Mikel Arteta who wanted to “do things his way”.

Arteta is a strong minded character. He knows what he wants to do. How he wants to manage. The players he needs.

Was there a conflict between Arteta and Sanllehi in the same way Emery and Sanllehi disagrees over players?

Sanllehi reportedly over ruled Emery a few times on players, and the result was Emery didn’t have the squad he wanted and got sacked. The board backed Sanllehi.

But this time it felt different.

Arteta got his way with David Luiz’s new contract and the signing of Willian. The board backed Arteta above Sanllehi.

It fees like the board want to put Arteta front and centre of Arsenal Football Club. That Lord Harris of Peckham, Ken Friar and Tim Lewis see him as a long term manager.

Once the decision is made that Arteta is the most important man at the club, you then need other employees to work alongside him, not work against him.

Arteta and Edu have a very good relationship. Both former Arsenal players. Both central midfielders. Same mentality on how to ply a game. They seem to work well together.

That left Sanllehi as the odd man out.

He is the one that doesn’t have a history with Arsenal, that works in a different way to Arsenal. He wasn’t really an Arsenal man.

The promotion of Vinai is also something that should be shouted about.

The British born Indian is well respected throughout football, and at just 39 (yes, he had a hard paper round), Arsenal have a very youthful looking management team.

There could be more Senior back office Arsenal employees to leave in the coming weeks.

After years of criticism of the board, asking if they care, it is good to see them take action.

The decision on Sanllehi was made by Lord Harris of Peckham, Ken Friar and Tim Lewis.

They are going all in on the Edu / Arteta partnership.

Keenos