According to Training Ground Guru, Arsenal have appointed Ben Knapper to the position of loan manager.
This is a new role which will involve monitoring of players sent out on loan to other clubs, their performances and beyond.
Knapper’s previous position was that of ‘Senior Football Analyst’, which included providing the manager and the coaching staff with video and statistical analysis relating to team performance, opposition analysis and player recruitment.
Arsenal have a number of players out on loan at the moment, from David Ospina at Napoli who is unwanted by the first team, to Reiss Nelson at Hoffenheim whose time there is seen as developmental.
This new position will ensure that all loan players are monitored properly, an area in which Arsenal have been lacking in the past.
There’s the story of one young first team squad member who was sent out to another Premier League club in the last few seasons, did well there, but had almost no feedback from the club on his performances during the season or on his return.
When you’re sending young players out to get regular playing time, it’s important to keep an eye on how they’re doing, so this appointment is very welcome.
It’s also possible that more players will go out before the end of the January window, with Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka and Eddie Nketiah all earmarked for more regular first team football to aid in their development.
Arsenal loan players 2018-19
David Ospina, Napoli: 15 appearances
Matt Macey, Plymouth: 28 appearances
Calum Chambers, Fulham: 15 appearances
Krystian Bielik, Charlton: 18 appearances, 2 goals, 1 assist
Kelechi Nwakali, Porto B: 8 appearances
Reiss Nelson, Hoffenheim: 20 appearances, 6 goals, 1 assist
Takuma Asano, Hannover: 9 appearances, 1 goal, 1 assist
“There’s the story of one young first team squad member who was sent out to another Premier League club in the last few seasons, did well there, but had almost no feedback from the club on his performances during the season or on his return.”
Chambers at Middlesbrough.
?
Jack also said he heard nothing whilst on loan.
And I heard this lack of communication and no recall whilst being victimised by that scoundrel Tony Pulis was a major factor for why Gnabry made up his mind to leave Arsenal.
It’s one of many legacies I hear not too many great things about how we handled development.
Jack (i presume Wilshere) didn’t wan’t to fight for his place in the team and left to Bournemouth. And he was surprised to hear nothing?
The club could have read J. Bird and Arseblog news report regularly to get updates on players out on loan!
The Loan Arranger
Someone’s got to tell us how Hiho Silva & Kemo Sabe are getting on
Completely forgot about Taking Asano?!
Taking him where? :p
Autocorrect can be really annoying but really funny at the same time. My flat mates a mugsmasher, and Naby Keita autocorrects to Baby Keith so that’s his name now.
I mean this is a thing in Football Manager so I just by default assumed it must be a thing in real life. Some of the shit that goes on at this club is rank amateurish for a several billion dollar valued club…
i was thinking the same. Chritian Karembeu used to keep an eye on them on FM12 for Arsenal , which is the last one i bought. and a fine job he did too!
Don’t underestimate just how far behind the curve football clubs can be at times – when Jerry Flannery (ex Irish Rugby International) was doing an internship at the club as a strength & conditioning coach he remarked that he was amazed at how far behind rugby the standards were there.
The Gerry Peyton stories would lead you to believe that he’s probably not exaggerating.
At least the club are trying to address it though, so better late than never.
Gnabry, innit?
Innit!
that Gnabry fiasco still give me a sour taste in my mouth. He have been flying in the wings for us by now if the club was professionally and modernly run by then. A one man show can not handle a big club like Arsenal (even a guru wizard like the Prof) simply because he can not do or think it all by himself.
Glad to see Matt Macey getting game time. Our junior keepers often have failed loan spells.
Not just game time…he’s getting peppered. I’ll bet he finishes tops in every keeper category on sheer volume alone except clean sheets.
Macey is 24, can’t really class him as a junior keeper anymore. And by reading recent local Plymouth press, he hasn’t really impressed.
What we need is clearly another supervisory position when the club are asking the other departments to cut costs.
At least it’s a footballing side appointment and not just some overpaid PR bit.
Close to what I wanted to say with a bit of added sarcasm. So, yeah.. On point.
I never understood why players were sent away and then ignored, even Wenger and his focus and expertise on youth would say in press conferences he’d not spoken to x individual
You know, he did actually say that a lot about both players on loan and within the camp. Spread himself too thin. I mean, just look at the lanky feller.
I also think that Wenger tried to do too much by himself. He was so forward thinking for his time but then time has caught him…
Because he wanted to do it all alone. After all, the Prof is superhuman.
I thought Kroenke was looking to turn the club into a bank for a minute there…
He only authorises withdrawals though. ?
It’s not withdrawals, it’s “advisory fees”
My dumb arse assumed this was because of all the loan deals we’ll be doing this jan
Lol same here
What about a contracts manager?
We have that now.
This is a very important improvement, some of our youngsters were badly let down by the club loaning them out and basically abandoning them. Gnabry left because of it, and probably wasn’t the only one. I remember Jon Toral having an excellent loan spell but it didn’t do him any good, he was ignored when he came back. Well done Per for fixing the situation.
This seems atrocious from a management perspective.
Were they sending scouts to watch matches??
As far as I know, almost everything football-related went through Wenger until the end, so this falls squarely in his court.
Many people has to take blame also, namely the Head of youth development, the u23 manager? and so on. But since Wenger must had a say in all this. He’s the main culprit.
Much as we dislike Gazidis, credit where it’s due, if Wenger had his way, our academy would be languishing in the past, with all the same head coaches that Wenger wanted to keep.
Seriously can’t underestimate just how bad our academy; facilities and support staff (or how little we had). I was over there and I was shocked, they were still using the old academy building from the 80s until Gazidis commissioned a complete upgrade there.
The same academy that in recent seasons have produced Bellerin, Iwobi, Maitland-Niles to the first team squad, Smith-Rowe, Willock, Nketiah on the fringes, and not forgetting Nelson.
They were still using an old building to teach???! Somebody warn Cambridge !
Haha, well when you consider all the other top 6 at the time had better facilities than us and were producing more players who went on to have more pro careers at higher divisions, I’d say that was a problem.
When you have a club the size of Arsenal with academy facilities on par with Charlton, I’d say that’s a problem.
Does anyone know if Chambers be recalled to provide an extra defender? Is that a difficult or costly process?
I don’t know why we would recall Chambers this month. We have Sokratis, Koscielny, Mustafi, Leitchsteiner, Bellerin, Monreal, Kolasanic, Mavraponos to see us through until end of season and I don’t see Chambers being an upgrade on any of those bar Mavraponos.
Bellerin, Monreal, Kolasinac and Leitch are all fullbacks not centre halves. I would argue that Chambers in on par with what we have currently in the centre half position so the proposal makes completely sense to me. We have shipped 31 goals in 21 matches which is abysmal so clearly our centre half options aren’t really that great right now.
Our cup on our ground against United. Get in!!
Makes sense. Although the appointment is from an analyst. So perhaps it is to replicate the same support services the players at the club to mirror Emery’s attention to detail in player development.
So will players will get some statistical or video analysis?
Statistics certainly, video analysis would certainly be challenging outside of UK.
This could also be a pre cursor for more younger development squad players to go out on loan and convince parents to allow them this opportunity.
It’s a big ask for a young hungry player to go out and have no contact from the club.
Even if it is character building it may still be traumatic.
Having someone available at the club you can call who is responsible for loans would give you some sort of safety net.
This is good. I am liking this new Arsenal. It seems like a lot of the mistakes of the previous management are being fixed.
Oh, f*ck Kroenke by the way. Just cause. Like. It’s cool to say it.