According to the Guardian, Arsenal are set to cull scouts covering France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy as part of in addition to the 55 redundancies the club announced yesterday.
We had already learnt that Francis Cagigao, our head of international scouting and Peter Clark and Brian McDermott, who covered the UK were set for the chop.
Today, it’s been revealed that Ty Gooden (France and Belgium), Leonardo Scirpoli (Germany), Julio de Marco (Spain) and Alex Stafford (Scotland) are also set to leave. The club’s Italian operation has also been cut.
Earlier this year, Arsenal parted ways with a number of other scouts including Steve Morrow, who was head of youth scouting, Dave Lee, Kevin Beddell, Dan Price and Joe Sutton.
The report claims the plans have been in the pipeline for a while and that there is no suggestion that any of the above will be replaced.
So what does it mean? At a time when other clubs are expanding their global scouting networks, ours is retracting. Perhaps we’re pre-empting a post-Brexit world where getting unknown continental talents to the UK is likely to be harder? Or maybe, and the evidence seems to indicate this at the moment, we’re just going to increasingly lean on our *cough* contacts to get deals done.
If that is the case, it does seem somewhat short-sighted. While many will point to our ‘poor’ recent track record of getting foreign teenage recruits (vs Academy graduates) into the first team and shrug their shoulders, it should be pointed out that even those who don’t ‘make it’ at Arsenal still generate millions of pounds in revenue.
Serge Gnabry, Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Ismael Bennacer, Donyell Malen and Krystian Bielik are just a few examples of guys who have moved on in recent years. Four of them are playing Champions League football and three are established internationals. In retrospect, should we have made more from their sales? Probably. Is that the fault of the scouting team? Erm, no.
Anyway, it’s always a sad turn of events when people lose their jobs. We wish them well for the future and hope they find a way back into the game quickly.
Didn’t the Arsenal hierarchy force the players into wage cuts under the proviso that no one would lose their jobs? This is a needless breach of trust and I worry about longterm effects. As for removing the scouting network entirely, this is totally down to the Raul/contacts effect. I’m shaking my head.
To say I wouldn’t piss on this board if they were on fire is putting it mildly. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Fans need to get together and act quickly because our club is not recognizable anymore. Regardless of whether you think we need scouts, firing 55 staff under the guise of Covid when there’s clearly more to it, on the back of players’ pay cuts and with some BS statement is just shameful. The AST needs to organize us. Blogs can you do something?
I agree that something should be done. I just worry that certain outlets in our fanbase will be distracted by factors like transfers, contracts, etc. Rather than hold figures like Sanllehi to task, they will raise him on a pedestal. There is precedent for this. I’m sorry for my cynicism, but if our voices somehow reach the club, the hierarchy may just dismiss it as “noise.” They did the same thing earlier in the season. Hopefully something productive can be done. I do think Arseblog and the Athletic (gunnerblog) are really productive voices here.
Seems like people don’t care because “Auba’s gonna sign da ting”
Very cynical move from the club, announce the redundancies sandwiched between the FA cup and the Auba announcement.
@MB exactly. Its super cynical from the hierarchy. It will be the distraction that they want and it will take away from their poor decision making.
Something to think about… Much of Stan’s family wealth is connected to Walmart. How has that Walmart wealth been affected by this pandemic you ask? Stock is up 10% year to date. So while his wealth has been soaring due to this pandemic, he cut’s jobs of hard working people who actually pay for themselves and more by unearthing promising young players who even if they don’t make the grade at Arsenal, they often command a decent fee from buying clubs. First time I’ve really been ashamed of the club I support. Even in their difficult years performance wise, they… Read more »
Walmart doesn’t belong to Kreonke, and also it’s not that easy to move money between business entities. It may be considered a fraud in the US if the owner moves profit from one business to another. It may be true Kreonke family is very wealthy, but I don’t know how much KSE is able to shift money into Arsenal’s books. Hope someone with knowledge in corporate law can help explain.
I guess if you don’t consider being married to one of the heiresses to the Walton family wealth as “belonging” to him, that is fine. However, I simply said much of his family’s wealth is tied to Walmart and this is factually correct. Additionally, his direct real estate wealth is also largely tied to the land at or near Walmart facilities. Regardless, I wasn’t implying he could easily transfer money from Walmart to Arsenal. I was simply pointing out the fact that during this pandemic his family has actually grown considerably more wealthy. And even as his family enjoys this… Read more »
There no way we are getting rid of the whole scouting team and not replacing them! Surely they must be planning something? Please say they have some sort of a plan which doesn’t just involve Kia!
This really isn’t a response to the Covid crisis, it’s a strategic decision about how Arsenal scouts going forward. They are obviously shifting to an approach that relies on statistical analysis and relationships with agents. I don’t agree with it but it’s going to be cheaper and easier especially when stadia are closed. Interesting that they seem to be keeping the South American scouts for the time being at least.
The wheeler dealer Head of Football has decided they don’t need the European scouts as future signings will all be provided by his new Iranian/Canadian/British “advisor” mate & his new college Gasper. As the one time fund manager of an investment group owning the economic rights of 60/70 footballers his advisor will not doubt advise him who to buy.
I was browsing Twitter wondering what the hell is going on and why we apparently no longer need scouts (definitely not because we have a super agent now.. noooooo)
Anyway, someone said it’s because Arsenal are going to approach things in a more data driven analytical way and this is exactly what Liverpool did for Van Dijk and Salah and other signings (their words not mine).
Dunno if that is actually the case, but there we go.
Well, when we start shopping at PSG, Real and Barca, bringing in the cream of world football, then I might take the shilling. Until then, whilst we’re scavenging around Chelsea’s dustbins, I’ll continue to believe what I believe now; namely that the entire Arsenal fan base are all being taken for idiots.
Hopefully this is the case because i am feeling very uneasy about all this. This is not how arsenal behaves.
Hard to see the full picture, but it’s terrible that hard-working scouts are losing their jobs. Lots of upheaval in the industry, technological advances, etc. Sky Sports did a piece a while back on one of the new digital scouting platforms:
“32,000 football industry professionals now pay for access to Wyscout, with Arsenal and Man Utd two of the platform’s most prolific users…”
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11096/10120950/wyscout-the-scouting-tool-used-by-arsenal-manchester-united-and-others
Are you getting a little suspicious of Raul’s way of doing business, or does this all make sense to you?
Why is this “Raul’s way of doing business” and not KSE’s?
Let’s leave the innuendo and personal agendas aside mate.
The cost-cutting and laying off of employees are directives that come from Kroenke Sports Enterprises. They’ve been telegraphing it since January.
I hate the idea of scouts losing work like us regular folks have, but we missed out on an entire generation of Spanish, French and Brazilian players.
We don’t know exactly what the new model looks like, but I will not be joining those pre-judging this as a disaster for the club.
KSE are not innocent; far from it, and they are the focal point of a flood of online ire. But please don’t ask me to believe that Raul and folks at the top aren’t the ones who directed some of the slash-and-burn at the scouting setup. Isn’t Raul the Head of Football? When loss happens at our club, on the field or off of it, we need to hold people accountable. I don’t think Raul can be excluded from that in this case. You’re welcome to believe that the job losses and reductions in our scouting network have nothing to… Read more »
I disagree with you and others that hold these views but I respect your difference of opinion.
Let’s not give KSE a pass. They have the most power over us.
Exactly, no one knows what “the case” is. No need to get upset at all about this.
The signings that I can recall that have been directly attributed to StatDNA have been mostly crap. Give me a pair of eyes and instinct every time (this is coming from someone who works very much in technology, so I’m no luddite).
VVD was the classiest player on the pitch every time he played for Soton, seems a stretch to say that their purchase was driven by data!
Even before Liverpool’s interest, VVD ran a game against us from the CB position while at Southampton. Never seen anything like it.
How did our scouting team miss him?
The scouts don’t buy the players though and there were links to us when VVD was still at Celtic.
Ah okay. If we knew him from Celtic it’s almost worse that we didn’t keep a closer watch on him after his Southampton move
We actually chose to sign Gabriel over VVD at the time. It was a ludicrous decision
Liverpool, they use a combination of actual scouting and data (they arguably have a better analytics team) , Relying only on data is not wise.
You still need boots on the ground so to speak, guys like Cagigao do a lot more then just spot talent. They speak with the players, ask them qestions and build a relationship with them. They find out if they have the mentality to make it in the top flight. Cagigao was against signing players like Vela and Perez because they didn’t have what it takes to make it at a top club. Analytics isn’t enough. It may help in identifying specific skills and traits, but it cannot account for the mentality and drive of a player, and whether or… Read more »
Should’ve been the wheeler dealer Raul. It’s starting to feel like all he’s doing is colluding with Kia at the expense of our club. I’m sure he’s on 25k a week or something ridiculous. Raul out
Can it get anymore obvious that the three rats Raul, Edu & their super agent friends fully control our club now?
Let’s not call Edu a rat. He’s an invincible, an Arsenal Legend and we don’t know enough about his job remit or influence to make an informed judgement on him yet.
Not so much a rat, as a potential lap dog. But, yeah, we none of us know the full facts yet – but, all the same, it’s a bit like seeing a good mate getting himself mixed up with entirely the wrong crowd.
Who needs scouts when you’ve got Kia Joorabchian eh? Just when I want to get excited about Arsenal again they remind me how much of a moron I have to be to keep putting emotional and financial stock in the affairs of money laundering white collar criminals.
Nailed it! Glad I’m not the only one who feels that being a Gooner these days leaves you increasingly feeling like a fraud to your moral beliefs. ‘The Arsenal Way’ is now nothing but a cheap marketing soundbite – a convenient coverup tool.
“France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy”
Quite right! Who in their right mind would put resources into scouting in those countries. I mean what footballers did they ever produce?
Only the last 4 World Cup winners on that list no biggie.
Yes and we signed basically none of the players, so maybe our scouts just weren’t actually very good
Well, Francis Cagigao was responsible for bringing in the following players to Arsenal: Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Santi Cazorla (Spain), Nacho Monreal (Spain), Hector Bellerin (Spain) and William Saliba (France). So, perhaps our European scouts weren’t actually bad as you make out….?
The ‘people above’ are at most imbeciles and at worst clueless hatstands. Truly baffling way to run a football club that’s meant to be self sustaining.
It could be much worse than clueless hatstands. More like shameless grifter piggies.
Hardly the match day guys and girls behind the food and drinks outlets (though obviously no disrespect to any of them; they do a fantastic job) as some numb nugget was hinting at on here the other day. Clearly this is determined and deliberate piece of legislation that centralises the player recruitment down to one odious little cretin with the added bonus of ‘reducing costs’ to ‘aid our transfer kitty.’ What a load of utter bollocks. They really must think we were all born yesterday. A fucking joke.
Odious little cretin who bought us Tierney, Saliba and Pepe last summer. Give me Raul over Ivan any day of the week.
All this hate for a board that is finally displaying some ruthlessness and ambition. I’ll reserve judgment until the transfer window is finished.
We have just completed our worst season in decades and people here are crying because we want to make changes. Suddenly wanting to invest resources in the 1st team is a bad thing. I don’t understand the hate
Well, to date, we seem to be shipping out 50+ staff, our entire European scouting network, AMN, Torreira – and, hot off the press, Lacazette – who apparently is bound for Athletico Madrid once Auba signs his new deal. But, hey, all is well – because we have another Chelsea reject coming in. Ruthless? Yeah, the proverbial bull in a china shop. Ambitious? ? Erm….nah.
Does Kia have his own scouting network that Arsenal are going to subcontract the services of?
Darth Stanius put an Order 66 out for all the scouts.
Doesn’t seem all that cost-effective, if that were really his objective.
It’s interesting. In your related articles, it shows one from April 29, 2017 titled “Wenger: We have to improve our scouting”. The majority of comments are all about how poor Arsenal’s scouts are. I’m not saying these positions should be terminated, far from it, but if these are the same scouts all the fans said were so awful 3 years ago, why are they all so wonderful today? That said, if the article was about how Arsenal were replacing these individuals with others who had been successful at other clubs, then I think we would all be happy as fans.… Read more »
You can’t replace someone if you make them redundant, otherwise you’re sacking them and you’d be up in court for wrongful dismissal. This is the club saying that under the current times we can no longer afford scouts. It’s utter b#llocks.
Which ever way I look at this I can’t see any benefits for Arsenal, as another blog user said : “Penny rich but pound poor”. Let’s say that the focus is short term and aiming to qualify for champion’s League. Who are you going to field? Old “proven” players with no residual values? Are we just going sign players based on their agent’s word like MU did and ended up with Bebe? This just feels like traveling to a foreign country with no map or GPS and rely solely on getting direction from local people. Yes it can work but… Read more »
The world is evolving and football is evolving and scouting will evolve as well. With AI and other technological initiatives, we will not need as many scouts as we used to have. However, the club did not handle it well. The decision may be logical but the timing is wrong. It does not reflect well on the club. Players cannot take a pay cut with the promise of keeping staff and go ahead and do this.
Only way to entire scouting department is ‘redundant’ is if they are putting all their stock in analyzing the data that we supposedly produce through StatDNA. The whole idea of that is the same as Moneyball in baseball, which rendered scouts useless in that sport also. In a world where ‘making less money than we thought we would’ equates to ‘we’re losing money’ its not surprising – as labor costs are always to biggest a company has, and the easiest to manipulate; no matter the business. Same as replacing manufacturing workers with robots.
I dont agree with completely getting rid of our scouts, but to be fair apart from Martinelli we haven’t got much to celebrate over the last 10 years? Abu has been amazing, but we didnt really need a scout to get him. I cant think of many players that have been amazing. Mostly OK, average, or garbage.
Andre Santos
HAHAHAHA…. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA…… fuck me that’s good.
Hahaha good 1
?
Santi Cazorla. Amazing.
Monreal. Often amazing.
Kos. Amazing. Left badly, but still great for Arsenal.
That’s just off the cuff. I’m sure there are more.
It’s Raul’s Club now, and it better work out as any plan B is currently being incinerated.
But one thing winds me totally the fuck up, all this bollocks about needing to make savings in order to make signings, ‘it’s what you fans want’. Fuck you Raul and Co, you can’t gaslight us like that, we know how football works and we know how you all work. We need to keep a real close eye on these counts.
Why are we all making a fuss about scouts being let go, what actually is the work of StatDNA and why did we acquire it, is scouting not part of the reason, we now live in an AI and data driven world, how are we sure most of the players we recruited since StatDNA was acquired were not through the data they provided instead of being through the scouts, mayb arsenal have been keeping those scouts all along even when they have little or no job to do, the only fault i can see is that the timing is wrong… Read more »
Keep this up and our scouting network will consist of Twitter ITK accounts and some spotty little Herbert in Barnet playing football manager 2020.
Herbert is the hero we all need right now
This announcement would have made more sense the restructure of our scouting setup was part of a modernisation process – for instance if some lower level scouts were replaced by data analysis experts. To make some of our most loyal and experienced employees redundant using Covid as a facade seem to indicate that there is more at play here. The voluntary reduction in player wages was supposed to prevent redundancies on this scale. The board must take us for fools if they think we are not able to join up the dots regarding possible ulterior motives for some of its… Read more »
So, moving to an entirely agent-based scouting system? I wonder whether this move has been in the works and the Covid crisis has just provided a justification? If so, it seems like a needless breach of the pay-cut agreement with the players which is likely to generate some unnecessary ill-will. (Özil will be feeling pretty smug today!)
Ozil not taking a pay cut is entirely his prerogative, but the following calculations are useful for context: Ozil’s annual wage = £18.2 million (£350,000 times 52 weeks) 12.5% pay cut would equate to a reduction of £2,730,000 Divided equally among the people made redundant, this would have paid for 55 staff members at an average annual salary of £49,363.36. My best estimate is that the gross cost savings from the redundancies are in the same ballpark as this one player refusing to accept the terms of the reduction in remuneration that the majority of his teammates did. While this… Read more »
Actually, I was being flip with the Özil remark. I don’t believe these firings have anything to do with the Covid crisis or cost-cutting per se. It’s a restructuring of the club’s operating structure – and would likely have happened anyway. I don’t think Özil’s contribution would have prevented any of these layoffs.
Disgusting. Our players and coach took a wage cut (only club in the PL) and they do this… Don Raul must be having a grand ‘ol time scratching his agent(s)’ friends back and vice versa.
At this rate, I doubt the players and staff have confidence in our management. Would Auba sign? Have a feeling he may consider leaving to play CL football elsewhere…
Pockets of specific people being lined all the time through ever increasing terrible deals…. smells very George Graham for my liking…. be interesting to see if the same bribes and shite are happening – not that KSE would be forced to fuck off even if there is – sadly.
Blogg’s piece on the main page today on this issue. Bravo. Well said. Completely agree.
This whole thing REALLY pisses me off.
I’ve defended Creepy Stan, Stan O’ the Creepy Stache, before on this site and others. Officially retracting those defenses; and never again. Fuck that guy. Fuck his idiot son. Fuck KSE and their shitty management.
Raul as HoF is going to ruin this club. They just fired the scout that found us Fabregas, Nasri, RVP, Santi, JAR…so many others. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK are these clowns doing?? Very very troubling.
Recognise a trend in these name Fabregas, Nasri, RVP, Santi, JAR… all just about 10 years ago all around. Maybe this move was in the pipes even before the crisis? Scouting is changing you know, Stats and analytics there of play a bigger role than ever.
Also, while the timing is unfortunate, consider the fact that arsenal are set to make a even bigger loss than the 25million last year. Which company can operate at a consistent loss? ?Hint none.
As reported at the time by James Olley in April Ozil ‘wants assurances over the club’s future plans’ and he would ‘be willing to take a higher pay cut if the club clarified how the money would be used and the future financial implications’. No such clarification was given. 4 months on Arsenal players (less the 3 including Ozil are the only players in the Premiership to take cuts. Now the club makes 55 employees redundant – head of scouting included. Meanwhile KSE sit on their his £6.8 billion. So who was right now?
This also explains, pretty much beyond any doubt now, that Arteta has been under instruction from the board not to play Ozil – because the player refused to dance to Kroenke’s tune. Oh there was a bad back, alright. But it wasn’t Ozil’s. It belongs to that spineless greedy cunt Kroenke.
How was Ozil right??? Who says that the 55 employees wouldn’t have been kept if Ozil actually accepted the pay cut?
Stfu with the billions, such a stupid point. Those billions are in shares not cash. Its a fact that arsenal are losing money 25million is significant. At the end of the day its a business. It may not be nice to make 55 people redundant, but what if the losses continue (120million projected for next season), you prefer to have all the staff made redundant when the club enters insolvency?
Think and then type.
So 55 people earning @ £50k will impact losses of £120m? Do the maths before you type!
Hardly a surprise the club is being restructured and streamlined. After years of becoming a bloated mess in wengers final years.
The game has changed almost all young players are known by clubs as soon as they reach their early teenage years.
Absolute rumor mill merchant. We had twice the staff that other top clubs had. There is clear restructure. Mislintant wanted to streamline, now we are doing it? I hope people remember when we’ll do more than well this scum clickbait. Couldn’t find worse clickbait on youtube with red arrows pointing to Raul.
Oh, Hi Raul!
First they say its a consequence of the pandemic then they say its been in the pipeline for a while,how can we trust these lot.
Arsenal will be the second football club (after Wolves) where the scouting job will be practically outsourced.
Kroenkes should be either blind or stupid, observing that man ruining their long term investment. #SanllehiOut
By Wolves the agent led approach seems to benefit them. At Arsenal we overpaying. Soares is an okay addition had he just been signed for free. We paid money for almost no return. If our Super Agents were benefitting us like Wolves I seriously doubt we would be complaining.
Why would a fan decide they know whether or not any of our scouts are any good? Maybe those within the club might have a better idea? I just don’t understand the level of assumption by so many Arsenal fans. Maybe we will re-structure and hire a whole new scouting team? At least don’t jump to any crazy conclusions…
You dont let go of some many people and not have a plan to replace them.You dont call them ‘redundancies’. And you certainly dont put forth a statement saying ‘this will help the club move forward’.
If a company make people redundant they don’t usually replace them – any time soon anyway. This is a symptom of the financial trouble that the club is in.
This is madness. I’m beginning to question my loyalty to the club. I can’t get to grips with where we are going and I really don’t like what Arsenal are becoming. If we are set to be a outlet for Rauls ego and Kroenkes wallet then fuck it. I won’t taake that and as the Kroenkes won’t sell then what else is there to do but save my money or spend it somewhere else?
Our only hope in all of this is Arteta and what he can (hopefully) continue to do. If he doesn’t get the backing that he needs from the board then he will be off-ski. And, I suspect, they’ll be pitchforks aplenty.
And next they will sell StatDNA because we have no scouts.Absolutely ridiculous.I am glad Wenger did not stay behind to oversee this shit.Would not have happened under him.
I regularly read Arseblog and Arseblog news, but seldom, if ever comment. But having just listened to the Arsecast re. the 55, I have been moved to write something now. I recall something being mentioned along the lines of as fans, a general feeling of helplessness as to what can be done to make a faceless corporate entity take notice and revisit what seems a harsh decision (Apologies Andrew, if my recollection is decidedly awry, and that wasnt mentioned). But (bar Liverpool’s owners and board, who seem more attuned to the emotions and importance of the fans and keeping them… Read more »
Blimey some right drama queens on here. Maybe the people in charge of the club know more about modern football and where the club needs to go than joe bloggs on a forum. The club has needed restructuring for years.
I find it hard to separate the team (who I love and support) from the club (who are aimless and amateur/deliberately disgusting). StatDNA can only support scouts, it can’t replace them. Agents are going to dominate the way we identify players which means no more unknown bargains… No more success stories. At best transfer windows will be expensive and predictable. At worst, they’ll be debilitating as we ONLY sign the players that make money for ‘friends’ of the club. We don’t get Anelka, Clichy, Koscileny, Martinelli etc with Kia. We get a bunch of talented players who couldn’t make it… Read more »
This obviously is the takeover of the machines, and by that I mean StatDna. It’s probably proven itself to be more efficient than people, which is a shame because people are nice, albeit redundant and expensive.
I am not in a position, as others are eager to do, to pass judgement on this so quickly. It may indeed be a poor decision. But to say that the Kroenkes are so idiotic or careless so as not to care about winning top titles or building a competitive team is very naive. Even if they are just in it for the profits, they know better than anyone that winning in a sustainable manner brings profits. I’m reserving judgment on this.
That seems the rational thing to do until we know more.
Nothing wrong with a little suspicion and reasonable doubt, either. 😉
Strange to be culling on scouting when that is exactly what we need now unless we have new preference to rely on superagents to do the work…
This really stinks. The contact based approach is how you end up like AC Milan. Full of primadonas and never able to compete.
This really is such disappointing news to hear. The players took a pay cut to help secure jobs…..I am not sure if Ozil did….however his £350,000 a week is completely unacceptable now….the 55 employees would each have to be on £25,000 a month to make up that figure…..and we know they are nowhere near that…..hearing now that AMN is potentially being sold genuinely puts us on the wrong path….and it’s a path that is beneath what The Arsenal has always stood for…..There will be long reaching consequences of ditching real human interaction scouting and choosing an agent based model…Goodbye Arsenal… Read more »
How is this even possible for a club of this size. Why are we the only premier league club to have this type of thing going on right now? Where are our cash reserves? The people who run the club are just as important as the people on the field.
Removing the scouting network is absolutel insanity.
Basically what they are saying is don’t expect anymore cesc fabregases, hector bellerins or Aaron ramseys.
Perhaps the idea that scouts can no longer travel means that they are the first to go.
Though you have to wonder what kind of stats is needed to recommend a signing like Willian.
For those who buy into this stats based BS.
The same kinda stats we used when we signed players like squilaci, andre santos and the likes Why are we all talking as if our scouting network is great or we’ve bought a player for nothing n sold them for over 50 million before If after 3 or 4 years the plan to let them the scouts go is far worse than the past few years then we can all come back and say we made a great mistake to let go of them but for now it ought to be fingers crossed How are we even sure the players… Read more »
The club has way more information than any of us do. I trust their decision.
I highly doubt such a move could ever happen under Wenger’s era and the board then. He was as much a father figure to the players as well as to the staff members and the board, members of the community themselves to ever be this dissociated from the troubles this would bring upon them. We’ve certainly regressed with this action and it shudders me to think that the worst repercussions may not be seen yet, perhaps and hopefully long after KSE has long gone.
So, can the players demand that their pays be restored back to 100%? I don’t understand why players took 12.5% pay-cut with the assurance that its to keep people from losing their jobs only for the club to now pull this stunt of laying of 55 people.
Honestly, I am lost!
What a load of bollocks
Despite being an Arsenal fan since 1966 standing on the North Bank, this makes me almost hope that we lose disastrously, and wind up demoted. It’s hard to imagine us ever winning a League Championship with Kroenke at the helm. Maybe if we went down a division, it’d encourage him to sell and buy another club to ruin.
Where is the AST in all of this? Sure another “We Care, Do You” message should be sounded loud and clear. Culling staff, with no clear alternate strategy totally contradicts the player wage cuts and everything Arteta is striving for from a values and belief system POV.
Just an odd time to be culling now when we need the network to find us the talent…unless of course we prefer to rely on Super Agents.
Club is going down the toilet.