It appears there is another candidate to take over from Sven Mislintat as the new Arsenal sporting director.
According to multiple reports in the media today former player Steve Morrow could be promoted from head of youth scouting to a far more senior role, which will include the sporting directors portfolio.
The former Northern Ireland international played 62 times for the Gunners before moving on to a journeyman career with a variety of clubs, he had a spell in management and returned to Arsenal in 2008 as a performance supervisor managing Arsenal’s international partnerships.
However, it must be noted that the press is not being consistent with this news, as an example, the Daily Star are stating clearly that Morrow is to be the new sporting director, whereas The Mirror are claiming that Morrow will be part of a three-man team and the search for a permanent candidate will continue.
It has become a bit of a farce, to be honest. so many names have been thrown into the hat with almost everyone turning us down for one reason or another.
Former Seville talent-spotter Monchi looked set for the role but instead returned to Sevilla, Marc Overmars was also approached but decided to stay with Ajax and former Barcelona pair Antoni Zubizaretta and Robert Fernandez have also been rumoured to be in the frame, this has all been covered in this JustArsenal article.
The hierarchy needs to get on with this in secret and get an experienced man employed as soon as possible or they risk making us look like a bunch of amateurs.
Don’t know about him, but what happened to the ex-Leicester City scout that Arsenal recruited? That scout successfully found players like Mahrez, Vardy and Kante
From the outside it looks like the Arsenal hierarchy don’t have a plan in place and are kind of just winging it.
I’ve started to feel like Raul is becoming like a dictator and is wanting to be involved in everything and just hiring his old colleagues or people he knows without due process.
Is anyone else getting this feeling?
Isn’t that what he’s doing? Being a nepotist.
When David Ornstein said Raul prefers his own contacts over anything else and he doesn’t trust today’s technology and analytics for recruit (A thing Sven is known for) I thought David was exaggerating.
Fast forward, we are still trying to get only the men Raul wants
Guys, let’s give him more time
I expect him to give us more Barcelona players next season
I hope Arsenal could increase the numbers of their English players in the first team though
They probably ripped Sven off, he might’ve showed our scouts what to watch out for, how to use his analytics, then they say, nice one, we’ll save a few million here as all we needed was the knowledge. Now Morrow is probably going to use Mislintats system. And it’s not just Sven, almost every team is going strong with a statistic based formula, Wenger was one of the pioneers, but they all use it to some extent these days. Or else maybe Sven wanted to work alone for fear of people finding his system easy to duplicate, and people didn’t like that he preferred not to share the wealth. I always felt that Wenger was too kind when it came to all his finer details, he used to let opposition managers come and watch his training methods. He always answered a question, whether it be on dietary habits or fitness regime, he was too kind from the beginning in trying to help the entire league out. Fergie wouldn’t have done that, managers would most likely try to hold onto any card held up a sleeve. Wenger was different, he thought about the good for the game in its entirety.
Wenger was on the opposite side of football and that’s the reason you have Arsenal as it is now!!
You mean Theo Walcott type? or buying Ben Chilwell for 72million? when Liverpool sold Coutinho did that money went to Brazil? or Southampton when sold Van Dyke the money went to Holland? Raul is a winner and he proved that for 15 years while at Barcelona give him time to put things together the so-called Morrow doesn’t qualify to be DOT at arsenal
Working for Kroenke can’t be that attractive
I think we should go for Gilberto again, I think he’s with the Brazil team but you can tell that he still loves to talk about Arsenal. That type of job at International level is very different to club level, the manager is basically the scout, he’s going to go with all the top players playing at the highest level. Offer it to Silva, and lean on our Arsenal legends to twist his arm if we have to. I can’t believe Overmars turned us down, he sounded keen, he spoke about maybe some Ajax youngsters following him wherever he goes, and then he does a u-turn, very strange. Gilberto is actually the very first one we looked at, well going by the reports it seemed that way. He has connections out in S American, like Raul, he and Raul would probably hit it off, I also see him not butting heads with Emery, Gilberto is a very practical guy. I like that Morrow is an Arsenal guy, but it’s a big step up from running the youth scouting, and to be honest we are still waiting for youths to start making the breaks like they used to do under Wenger, we used to bring through fullbacks allot. We brought in Holding, Guendouzi, Torriera, Chambers, all young players as our youth team wasn’t producing, Iwobi is the only recent one I think. If Morrow does get it, then I think it’s just going to be til an opening happens with someone they really like, no offence to Morrow and I hope he grabs it with four limbs.
Or they could be doing what they done with the manager position, when the excitement was low and people thought that Arteta had the job, along comes Unai, out from the back of the pack and he wins it by a nose. My ma used to do this for my birthday, she’d give me a stupid gift and then when I got insulted by it, she would say just kidding, here’s the real gift, but you deserve a slap.
great comments, you’ve stepped it up BOT the international break made you a football guru..i really enjoyed it 🙂
ps: thank you again for that missed article!! COYG
Personally I will not b ejudging Raul as harshly and , I suggest, also as prematurely as SOME Gunners are prone to do. It takes a goodly time to turn an “international ocean going liner” of Arsenals huge size fully around. I prefer to give the captain and first mate, though NOT the owner,( who is a “baddie” to his core) sufficient time to do this task. The modern social medai world sadly fosters and demands instant solutions. In the real world life does not work that way. Steady but increasingly noticeable progress, even though perhaps slow at first, is far more realistic to expect. If you want INSTANT solutions, as some do, perhaps fantasy films rather than Prem football should be your passion and interest.
Jon,
Agree with you 100% and Raul had proved his record while working for Barcelona and let give him a chance coming this summer and see what will happen in terms of players recruitment/sales and probably he should be also DOF same thing he did in the past and work with Emery directly.
I kinda agree with you here Jon.
Everyone and their cat knows what I think of Gazidis, who-ever was going to take over is going to need time to not only sort our finances out but also sort our partnerships out which will help finances in the future.
While we may disagree with Ozil, I think we can both agree that Sven did raise our wage bill a lot in the short time he was with us, when Ozil wage is added on then it is a big mess.
Ozil, Mkhi, Auba and Sokratis are earning about £750k a week (combined), this is £39 million over a year. Only Auba is a player I feel we could move on, the others… maybe but it is going to cost us.
midkemma , I had always thought “everyone” only had a dog. Now I know he/she also had a cat, it is good news, as there are now even more creatures around to dislike the dreadful and gleefully missed Gazidis. If he NEVER again enters our ground, it will still be too soon! GOOD RIDDANCE OILY, SMARMY, LIAR AND CON MAN. DO NOT COME BACK! EVER!!!
Well, it has been quite long I wrote last on this forum; that was partly due to the nature of the job I do at presen, although this does not suggest that I have stopped watching Arsenal matches. No, I haven’t.
With what I have seen from our team recently, we can still have a good transfer window during summer if we get into the top four.
If I had the power, I would start by putting Chambers, Mustafi, Elneny and our loaner at Napoli on the market. Those guys should swell our Treasury by 45 to 50 million pounds.
The first person I would buy would be Nicolas Pepe. 50 million would work it. Buy Tierney from Celtic for around 30 million and promote Medley as a left-side centre halve. I would also bring Emile Smith Row to the first team as well as call back Nelson. That would be 80 million spent, which equals the said amount we have in our coffers and what comes because of champions league qualification.
The 45-50 million got from the sale of players, I would invest it on a Ramsey upgrade.
I would then wait until the next summer to address any issues that may come from the defenders, and arrest them to the roots.
This is spending within the scope of one’s budget.
“Sevilla have given up hope of signing Lille forward Nicolas Pepe because there is a belief he has already agreed terms with Bayern Munich.”
“On Wednesday, Manchester United and Arsenal were told by Lille president Gerard Lopez they will have to pay €80million (£68.7m) if they want to sign the forward in the summer.”
I doubt 50 mil would be enough :'(
Why promote Medley to lCB when we have Mavropanos and Holding for that role, both young promising CBs… Ok, Holding is injured but we still have Kos the Boss who is a lCB.
Agree with Teirney, he has looked the real deal the few times I’ve seen him outside of YouTube.
I understand that you misunderstood my statement: When I said “promote Medley” I didn’t say that by doing that, he becomes a starter. No! I meant it as a cover. Who would start Medley over a fit Koscielny, or a fit Mavropanos?
If we had a good cover, we would not have to resort to Lichsteiner against Southampton, who was no way ready for the game.
50 million will bring Pepe to us if we are serious, because if he goes to Bayern Munich, he will not settle for a position on the bench, and Bayern Munich will not be stupid to wipe away by the wave of the hand the fact Gnabry has found his feet in that position by taking him out of the first eleven.
He knows that if he comes to Arsenal he will play week in week out.
Hello from Nigeria.