Jeorge Bird, our resident academy expert, reports that Sam Hayball has been promoted to the role of loan manager at Arsenal.
The 30-year-old replaces Ben Knapper who took up the Sporting Director position at Norwich City in November.
Hayball has been on the books at Arsenal for nearly 10 years, starting his career as an analyst in the academy while he was still studying at the University of Hertfordshire.
He was promoted to first team analyst in 2016, a position he held for five years, and more recently worked under Knapper as the club’s loan coordinator.
Elsewhere, The Athletic reports that Edu has recruited a new scout to cover South America.
Paulo Xavier joins from Real Madrid having previously held positions at Manchester United and the Brazilian Football Confederation, where he overlapped with our Sporting Director.
Best of luck to Sam and Paulo in their new roles.
Slightly disappointed we didn’t give Mark Corrigan a shot as loan manager
Hahaha!
Him and Johnson could do one hell of a PowerPoint in Aberdeen.
I’m not sure if they’d be ready or not for Project Zeus
Edu is the velvet glove to Arteta’s iron fist
You will not be informed of the meaning of Project Zeus until the time is right for you to know the meaning of Project Zeus
Would they use a 32″ plasma in Aberdeen? You get a document up on that baby and you are seriously looking at that document.
Chance would be a fine thing. A fine thing indeed.
That’s a thing people say.
He was offered the job but turned it down as the kronkes refused to stretch to an ergonomic management keyboard.
South America is definitely a place we could be better at recruiting from. There seems to be a new wonder kid every week that goes to a top club.
With Edu’s strong links over there, we need to start pipping Barca and Madrid (and it pains me to say Chelsea) to all the top talent.
Chelsea have largely been predatory in that market, taking advantage of clubs with financial issues, to get players for cheap. It remains to be seen if those players have what it takes though (or if anyone has the patience required).
A number of clubs in Brazil are now also owned by multi-club operations, and it wouldn’t shock me to see kse looking to expand in much the same way in South America’s top league.
Yeah. Good point. It’s one thing buying them. But they could well be crap.
And given how shite Chelsea are at developing talent, they could even be good and flop at that absolute joke of a club.
Why do I feel like Mudryk would be absolutely flying if he came to Arsenal?
My thoughts on Mudryk have changed. I thought he was a raw, very talented player who needed time, a good team around him, and coaching to become very good. I thought he could become very good because otherwise Arsenal would not have been trying to buy him for so much money–I trusted the judgment of Edu, Arteta, and Aresenal generally that they couldn’t be that far off. Now, I think he is a stupendously fast runner who is also a good dribbler but I doubt he will ever be the sort of player worth 100 million. I may be wrong,… Read more »
Remains to be seen imo, mainly because he has talent for sure and maybe like Salah needs a proper team and a coach to bring the best out of him.
Coaching is important in development, but so is stability- something he won’t find at the Reliant Robin Arena
Mudryk reminds me a bit of Miyaichi. Unfortunately the japanese was unlucky with injuries and did not develop as hoped but both feels same level of Raw. I had hopes we could develop mudryk but for 100m chelsea got fleeced, we got trossard for cheaper
Yeah. Who knows, hey?
I would actually say that Mudryk’s character could be a stumbling block to success at Arsenal. Chelsea are a bunch of flashy kids on silly money.
At Arsenal there are no egos. Everyone works hard for each other. We don’t have “celebrity” players who want to be seen at red carpets and endlessly post on social media.
I’m just not sure Mudryk would have fitted in with this humble and diligent group of lads.
Much like Antony at Manure!
To me it doesn’t feel like your second paragraph contradicts your first. I really feel like all those things you predicted would’ve become true, and the reason your observations in the second paragraph have become true is that he’s at Chelsea instead of Arsenal. Player development and coaching is severely underrated in terms of player careers’ outcomes (in most cases, there are the rare outliers whose talent and/or tenacity is so off the charts that they would succeed almost anywhere but those are rare imo)
Brexit has a part to play – it’s now easier to recruit from outside the EU that it was prior… Chelsea have gone with the approach of buy all the players – whereas we’ll buy the ones that fit.. Chelsea’s model will collapse, they can’t keep that many players happy (Noni Madueke already looking for a move 5 months into a 900 year contract)
Hayball-ball era has begun
They need to send out the starters for the u-21 team … they are all due for loans in my humble opinion