After Arsenal put an end to the recent rumours and announced the upcoming departure of Sven Mislintat earlier today, the question became who would replace him as Head of Recruitment.
It seems that the man they’re looking at is already at the club: Francis Cagigao. For those unfamiliar with him, he’s been Arsenal’s main scout in Spain and Portugal for many years, working under Steve Rowley for almost all of the Arsene Wenger reign.
He spotted the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Lauren, Hector Bellerin, and Nacho Monreal, and is highly regarded across European football. His future was uncertain since the arrival of Mislintat but now that the former Borussia Dortmund man is on his way it looks as if he’ll be the one to fill the gap and head up the club’s scouting and recruitment team.
The news was accompanied by a link to Roma’s current Director of Football, Monchi, to become the club’s new Technical Director – the role promised to Mislintat by Ivan Gazidis.
As per @DaveHytner Bellerín ruptured ACL confirmed in scan today, 6-9 months. Rest of squad were paintballing pre #MUFC. Francis Cagigao tipped by many to succeed Mislintat as HoR with Monchi among names for TD (no timescale). #AFC want 2 loan deals, 1 being Suarez but not close
— David Ornstein (@bbcsport_david) January 21, 2019
We’re a little unsure what to think of this because his name came up in an Arsecast conversation last week and we joked about someone picking up the rumour, but we know David Ornstein doesn’t deal in speculation so maybe there’s something to it.
Monchi obviously knows Unai Emery well from their time together at Sevilla, where his eye for talent saw them bring in the likes of Dani Alves, Julio Baptista, Ivan Rakitic and others in the early stages of their career. Not only did they develop as players, they brought in hefty fees when sold.
Whether Arsenal can prise him away from Roma remains to be seen, as does the level of our interest, but he’d certainly be a quality appointment if we could make it happen.
Report: Hector Bellerin’s season over as cruciate ligament injury diagnosed
If Monchi signs I hope he brings the AS Roma social media admin with him too
I dunno, our own social media team is pretty badass.
Funny thing is the Roma Twitter Admin is Nigerian and based in Nigeria
Monchi hasn’t had a great time at Roma in my opinion. Pastore and Nzonzi for €25m each are plain bad and not the type of transfers we should be doing. His only really good signing has been Zaniolo. Not convinced by Ünder but at least he has resell value. Bought for €13m I think.
I agree on your examples of two bad signings, but they’ve had a decent track record on recruiting. Alisson in goal, Manolas in defence. Under is very highly regarded, and Bryan Christante and Justin Kluivert both decent signings this summer. With Monchi Roma have had a successful era, really having performed above their level domestically and in europe. We could certainly do worse
Excellent post, C and B and A.
really excellent.
An all-Spanish backroom/technical team would make a lot of sense. Cagigao also has ties to Arsenal going back even before Arsène so he is steeped in the Club. And Monchi and Unai have been a successful partnership before. No reason why they can’t do it again. Weird that Philippe Auclair talked with you about starting this rumour though!
It does sound good, and coming from Ornstein gives it more weight, otherwise it sounds like exactly the kind of vaguely believable story a click baiter would come out with.
Emery is well on the way to becoming a new Arsene here, wielding this much power already. There is definitely a Spanish-based power play going on and I’m not sure it’s in the club’s best interest at all.
It seems UE’s bruised ego after his PSG experience has decided to take Arsenal in his hands. If he is as successful as in Paris…..
Cagigao played for Arsenal. Not sure whether first team level though
Honestly, if this comes to pass, I actually like it better than what we had. It feels more like a team and less a randomly thrown together bunch of individuals.
Totally agree. Wenger, Usmanov, Gazidis, scouts, players, coaches etc. have left the club this season. And it seemed a bit forced throwing that many new faces in a bowl and hoping for instant chemistry. Think this is what we’re seeing now.
I actually disagree. This feels more like “old boys network” kinda vibe; bringing people you already know and well connected with, due to a Spanish-speaking contingent. It’s like when people get jobs because “my dad’s golfing buddy” rather than due to actually being the best fit. At least with Gazidis (prick that he was), people were picked due to a legitimate recruitment process and/or due to a particular vision. At least Sven was recruited with analytics in mind, which also worked with our purchase of StatDNA and them being part of the recruitment process. Also, I’m sure this head coach… Read more »
They probably will do well but will they do as well as we could have done. Nepotism is a plague in our society and now in our football club.
It’s the one thing I was looking forward to. Gazidis is a prick and this is mostly his doing, but at least with his vision it was quite objective; this is what we want to do, and these are the best people for it. That provides a level of diversity, but I don’t know why people think that’s a bad thing at all, as that’s exactly what Arsenal needs, after many years of our stagnant board becoming this mesh of rich upper-class removed from the world. It looked like Gazidis was at least trying to change that, but now looks… Read more »
“Old boys network” or not, the partnership of Monchi & Emery worked wonders – and for a self-sustaining club, the way Monchi is able to pick out players for peanuts and then treble their resale value is a great match for us.
Lambasting our new (potential) setup simply because they’re “Spanish-speaking” people who’re bringing in “their people” is just ridiculous…
“the way Monchi is able to pick out playes for peanuts and then treble their resale value is great for us.”
And Sven was known for what exactly?
For signing Torreira, Aubameyang and Guendouzi for starters
Lichsteiner waste of 90K on the wage bill.
Extending Ozil for 350K
Wasting time with Mhkitaryan when we needed someone like Mahrez (Talk about an old boy network for Dortmund)
Why have you not mentioned Mahrez before Santorini??
Well I hope this happens. Hopefully this is based on a plan and not the club throwing shit on the wall to see if it sticks or not.
Idk why I imagined a dookie being thrown at a wall, slowly falling down………
Let’s make it happen Raul! COYG!!
Monchi is apparently a complete nutter, who had a complete meltdown before leaving Seville.
Yet someone here likes to paint the idea that Sven is an uncontrollable basket-case that left 2 clubs and is unworkable.
Who would that be?
With that picture & name I wasn’t sure if this wind a wind up.
Seems it wasn’t.
The return of Julio Geordio
Mislintat is a household name. Doesn’t mean there aren’t other equally good and proven talent scouts in the game with connections.
Our issue isn’t so much scouting as convincing the board and their stats software that we should spend the cash now rather than later. Or the whole +£1 saga.
In a way Raul or TD is more important than finding a new talent scout.
As they have two difficult jobs, dealing with our greedy owner and then convincing players to choose us over others.
Monchi would be a major steal. Roma’s a selling club, but I doubt Arsenal would be willing to buy them out, so I guess it really depends on A) how much he wants to come and B) whether he has any sort of clause in his contract allowing him to leave.
Throw Elneny in the other direction please. They are welcome to have him.
Isn’t Elneny a player said Monchi rates? I think that would explain Roma’s interest
What we really need now is to push the players we have to give 200%. Just like the Chelsea game, the draw eith Liverpool earlier on the season, and the league game against spurs. Those are the only 3 games that we were really up for it!!
They don’t even need to give that level of effort in all 38 league games of season. Just give that level of effort in 80% of the games and we’ll win the leauge. This is not rocket science
Ornstein is no longer the oracle
Did Cagigao find us Squillaci as well?
How he can get credit for Fabregas is astonishing. He was at la Masia FFS!
I laughed so hard after seeing the Monchi link. Last week’s Arsecast was in the back of my head and it’s still making me giggle at how that conversation has played out in real life. On a serious note though, there seems to be some power play going on where the Spanish guys are looking to take power. Seems like Gazidis’ plan was to be the glue that held all these parts together, basically a new Arsene. He must have not taken into account that his acquisitions would be able to question and out vote him, as evidenced by the… Read more »
Mslintat is overrated.
Dortmund isn’t the only club that bought well.
Athletico, Monaco also had good spells buying players. Lyon too.
Mslintat only seems to know how to operate within a Dortmund/German sphere which is an Achilles heel.
In that he did not fully replace the wider scope of Wenger’s network.
Mslintat is easily replaced. No loss.
Well, amazingly, two of the three people who “hand-selected” Emery have now left the club under strange circumstances within seven months of his appointment. That doesn’t make much sense to me. And definitely does not point to a larger plan.
Hopefully we can pull it together and make it into a positive situation quickly! Moncho would seemingly help with that for me.
The person who hand selected Emery was Gazidis (and probably Wenger)
Doubtful that Mslintat was in the process. That is myth.
8 people downvoted you but not one could give any evidence as to why.
Whomever we appoint, we need to back the man 100% and actually trust their decision. I hope Sanhelli doesn’t mingle too much into choice of signings and focuses more on getting the negotiations done.
What’s the point of appointing him if the owners only want a puppet?
Appoint a muppet then.
Bring him on. Mslintat has been poor. Wage bill has inflated since. Instead of getting Mahrez the Rwinger we needed as long ago as last season, he had us held hostage to United and we ended up with Mhkitaryan. Instead of buying a proper Cback this summer, we have a stop gap solution in Sokratis and an unnecessary Lichsteiner clogging the wage bill further at 90k a week. Band aid. Torreira isn’t even that great a signing. Last number of games, he has been poor. See BHA, Soton and Liverpool where he gave the ball away or was robbed in… Read more »
Do you have any friends? Or have they all deserted you because you won’t stop talking?
Less we forget pre-Sanheli/Mslintat, Wenger and team were still one of the best in Europe for scouting talent. Whether they brought in enough is another issue and they of course did skimp on certain areas in defense. BUT aside from Fabregas as mentioned, they also brought in Santi Carzola from Spain. That was a veritable coup given the price paid. Another less mention inconvenient fact is that Wenger went on to craft him into a midfielder. Also those bleating on about losing Ramsey for nothing tend to forget that we paid a mere 4.75m for him from Cardiff. If anything… Read more »
I hope we do the Dennis deal. Get rid of Elneny to add some elasticity to the wage structure. Carrasco looks unlikely unless we sell Ozil and free up substantial wages. There was talk that Inter were potentially interested but that may hinge on whether Jack Ma takes over and if there is sufficient injection of money in for them to balance out FFP. Plus they are also looking at Nicolas Barella so why would they load on another midfielder in Ozil? IMO if we are keeping Ramsey to end of season and Ozil, we may as well offer Mhkitaryan… Read more »
Its also good to promote from within the structure. Wenger was excellent with most of his buys. He was pennywise pound foolish with some but tended not to spend too much therefore it was at less detriment to the club. BUT overall over the years he made excellent buys which he was able to sell on for profit critical for a club that is self sustaining and growing. From Spain, Fabregas, Monreal, Santi but also spotting Bellerin and bringing him through the ranks. I expect with Unai in charge, we would get a little more Latin element in the club… Read more »
1. Start your own blog – you could be the new legrove
2. I stopped reading at “Torreira isn’t even that great a signing”
I think there is a cultural aspect to tactics used by coaches from similar regions. Younger Spanish coaches seem to like to attack by pressing when the opponent has the ball in their own half and defending by possessing the ball with their own midfield. While this is simplistic, I think it’s the overall plan Emery sees for Arsenal. This style requires a “pressing #10 that is good at keeping possession of the ball” and why both Ramsey and Ozil have been deemed surplus to requirements. If we are going to play this way, I think it’s best that our… Read more »
But why appoint a coach if his style of playing is not compatible with your two best midfielders (at the time) , one of whom the club had just signed to a long term mega deal? You’d think one of the interview questions would have been “how do you intend to use and get the most out of the guy we are paying 350k a week?” Or…”do you plan on using Ramsey ? let us know so we can sell him this summer if you don’t want him”
Emery is asking Ozil to do more and Ozil is refusing and wants to do the least. How hard is it for a pro footballer on 350k a week to add tackling to his game? I guess that’s above a world cup winning 30yr old in this game, sigh lol.
Cagiago, FM Legend