The Telegraph report that Arsenal are set to add to their scouting staff having pinched Leicester’s head of technical scouting, Ben Wrigglesworth.
He’s been credited with finding gems from Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante, both of whom arrived from Ligue Un. Traditionally France has been a decent place for Arsenal to go shopping, but despite hits like Laurent Koscielny and Olivier Giroud, there have been some misses in recent seasons as players like Marouane Chamakh and Yaya Sanogo have failed to make a significant impact.
The Gunners had tasked former player Brian McDermott to do some scouting, but he has since rejoined Reading as manager for a second spell.
The club’s scouting system is headed by Steve Rowley, who has been a mainstay of the Wenger era, but in 2014 recently appointed youth supremo, Andries Jonker, suggested things at that level needed to change, saying, “The scouting must be restructured all over again. It needs to be brought to a level so that we can bring in the absolute best talents from abroad and from England at an age that Wenger can immediately work with them.”
And as football moves on, it’s good to add to the personnel at a senior level too, where he can work alongside the likes of Rowley and Gilles Grimandi to help find new talent.
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Had to read this twice to make sure it wasn’t a joke article because Ben Wrigglesworth sounds like a made-up name
Clearly you’ve not heard of Mr. Wigglebotham.
Dr Evil’s cat?
Sounds like a decent signing. The sort of thing that ought to lead to other decent signings.
LANS
Glad they could Wriggle him away from Leicester.
@spaceman Lols!
Hopefully, he’ll prove his ‘worth’ soon.
Yes indeed, he will have some wriggle room to prove his worth.
Always said we that France would be good for players, you know that France they have now, massive prawns.
…but I’d rather we do some serious scout poaching@ Southampton. They’ve gat some good scouting rader there. Last season they lost eight first team players to some of the big teams (Arsenalinclusive) and they still manageto performed better with new recruits
Did he come along with Riyad Mahrez?
“Do you come with the car?” “Oh you, hahahah”
Mahrez is top quality and so is Vardy. If we have them no prize is beyond us.
And thus the boy scout and the grumpy old man set out on a zany adventure and they managed to get a bird they quite liked and a then dog and then erm.. I guess that’s the story.
Do you we think we had scouts watching Mr Wrigglesworth for the past 12 months?
Bit amiss of Leicester not to have scouts watching our scouts, who were watching their scout, to see what they were up to.
Well, obviously.
I’ll bet what happened here is that we had scouts watching their scouts watching our scouts watching their scout. Our scouts watching their scouts warned our scouts watching their scout that they were being watched, so our scouts watching their scout were able to avoid being watched by their scouts watching our scouts and get the job done.
Ozil to wear new Adidas laceless boots! 25 assists and 13 goals he shall score against Chelsea this coming weekend. My predictions usually come true just so you know
Ben Wrigglesworth also scouted Hingle McCringleberry a few seasons back …
Mahrez, kante.. must be a fine angler. Good to have him on board, with a name like that I’m not going to question his bait
As at now, Wrigglesworth was Wriggled away from Leicester, I hope he’s Worth all th risks.
Determining who is and isn’t a quality scout is a tricky one, because it’s an area that is prone to flavours of the month (or season, in this case). The name escapes me, but there’s the French guy who found a few gems for us, before making a bit of a mess (or more likely being made a scapegoat) at Spurs and Liverpool. It was only a couple of years ago that Newcastle’s scouting department, having rolled out Demba Ba, Papiss Cisse (who looked a ridiculous talent for 6 months!), Cheik Tiote, Mathieu Debuchy, Cabaye etc. was being touted as… Read more »
Camolli
*Comoli
He was clearly an undercover agent, sent to sabotage Sp*rs. Good lad.
Yyyyeeeeeeessssssss!
This is the January signing I was hoping for!
Arsenal! Arsenal! Arsenal
Blogs how can you not mention The JEFF and Yassine Fortune with the other recent french talents scouted? I know we don’t know yet how they will turn out, but the potential for both is promising enough to warrant a mention.
He’ll need ti,e yo gel with the other scouts. Automatism and cohesion.. 😉
*time to
blame it on the six-pack besides me..
Can he play as the World Class Forward?
Haha just over a week to find us a title winner and earn his money this half season.
On another note i hope this is proved a stroke of genius from the arsenal.
He’s perhaps not the signing we all wanted… but the signing we deserve?
Speaking of poaching from Leicester, shouldn’t the club make a big push to get Mahrez in the summer? I think he would fit in perfectly with our style of play and would be a more effective right winger than anyone we have on the books. Just imagine the interplay between him, Ozil, Cazorla, Giroud, Alexis, et al. — it could set a new standard for Wengerball and could even help us beat Europe’s best. (We would keep him away from the penalty spot, of course.)
Now lets get a top physio to add to the backroom!
I’ll get some stick for this, but the injuries aren’t just down to recurrent ones, there’s something structural at hand with the whole setup too.
Is poaching a scout better than BBQ’ing them?
(or roasting them…..)
Oh man this is excellent
He sounds like he wears a monocle.
I can’t recalled any youngsters we bought who can immediately join the 1st team as a genuine squad player. Perhaps this is where he can show his worth.
On a side note, how good actually Dr Eva Caneiro is? Perhaps the club might consider her as well, heard she is well liked and rated within Chelsea.
I would swap theo for aubameyang