It is being reported this morning that Arsenal’s Sporting Director Edu is set to leave the club.
The Brazilian joined as Technical Director in 2019, and was made Sporting Director just under two years ago – giving him responsibility for all aspects of the football club, including men, women and Academy.
However, despite a seemingly solid relationship with manager Mikel Arteta, he has decided to leave Arsenal, with some whispers he could be set for a role at Nottingham Forest due to a close relationship with their owner Evangelos Marinakis.
Arsenal have not yet made any comment on the situation, and right now it’s unclear as to when Edu’s departure might take place. Typically, when a something like this develops, it means something is imminent, but we’ll wait and see how it all plays out.
More as we get it.
WTF why
If it’s to go to Nottingham Forest then my only logical assumption is that City are going to beat the charges and turn the prem into the wild west. As Stan will never run the club in such a manner, Edu is jumping ship to a club that will go bananas in the transfer market. Regardless of this, I think this is really sad news and I really don’t like the timing. This will open up all sorts of Mikel rumours too I imagine, despite him recently signing a new contract. We have players like Saliba that need reassuring if… Read more »
Maybe Edu didn’t get the promotion he wanted and thought he deserved?
The majority of us are in the same boat where we work.
If this happens, it just seems a signal that we’re going back to penny-pinching. Which DoF wants to be in charge of a depleting budget?
Bad take. If Arsenal wanted to keep Edu, they would have.
How do you figure that?
He’s not a great seller and this window wasn’t ideal. We needed an attacker or at least Ode’s replacement.
He’s a Brazilian but hasn’t signed anyone of note, especially young talents. Arteta has most power in terms of identifying an finalising the playing squad.
The replies to this thread are a fascinating study of human behavior. Everyone has their own theories of what must have happened based on prior convictions about the club. It’s perfect a perfect Rorscharch test. If you think Edu has been brilliant and is moving to greener pastures, if you think he’s been bad and is being eased out, if you think the club is being cheap, if you think Edu is being greedy, if you think Arteta likes him or doesn’t like him, you can build a plausible case. My question is what does your case about Edu say… Read more »
Who gives a fuck about individual biases, he’s gone.
Cos they’re preparing for Gazidis’ return.
Couldn’t all this wait till the summer break? FFS
Why would you want him to leave at the time of the year when he would be the busiest? Surely now is the best time if anything…
Very good point that I hadn’t considered. It’s not like a player or manager leaving. When the team is actually playing is when Execs are least needed.
Expected it at some point, but not for at least another couple of years. I thought he was an integral part of our ongoing development
Potential promotion not granted, that’s the most likely reason.
What kind of promotion is he looking for? Isn’t he already in charge of everything football related?
No he is not. Arteta has as much if not more power.
This is a shame if it’s true but I think we’ll be OK, got Per and we have a clear strategy, don’t need to fix anything, just keep on trucking
Strategy being, pass it to Saka and pray that him and your one and only creative player never gets injured because there’s no replacement or plan B?
Fucking hell what a negative take on our team.
Maybe forest will welcome you as a fan too?
eh? that’s some logic there. I take it you have never had a differing opinion on anything then.
Yes, It may be a rather negative take but given the amount of money and time this project has been given, I was rather expecting more. The fact it takes 1 or 2 players to be absent for the whole thing to come crambling down doesn’t feel me with a lot of confidence.
I’m expressing an opinion, you may or may not like it but that doesn’t make me any less of a fan.
I think considering the amount of time and money United/Chelsea have spent we’re doing pretty well. Couple of below par results and people lose all perspective
But I don’t give a stuff about either of those teams.
I’m not losing any perspective at all, but we haven’t won anything in a while.
Is that down to us or down to 115 instances of City cheating?
I have to agree – too many teams know how to keep Arsenal at bay because of a lack of imagination when it comes to adapting tactics to counter the opposition’s gameplan. Newcastle were quite brilliant at doing this on Saturday. Having said that, I’ll be sad to see Edu go. He’s a good fella and I had a beer with him once (well, I had a beer and he had a Diet Coke – and he paid!)
@ Glenn – Sometimes I do wonder if people started following this club last weekend. DoFs have left Arsenal before, and whatever clarity in strategy existed at the time of their departure has taken 3 to 10 years to re-manifest. Combined with the summer we just had, this is a clearly bad sign. I thought the club had rescued that window at the last second, but I now have my doubts. If they don’t get in a new DoF before January, we’re well off the rails.
Just give the man pay rise.! The club has progressed so well the past few years you don’t want changes right now!!
Sad to hear him go. Fingers crossed we keep his grill though.
Wouldnt afford to lose edu bbq analysis
It would be bad enough losing him to another major European club but how on earth are we losing him to Forest?! Especially with all the controversy linked to Marinakis. Hardly seems like a dream job
I suspect that if he does go then it will be more head of football operations across the three teams that Marinakis owns (Forest, Olymipakos and Rio Ave in Portugal), and there is rumour he is going to buy another team in Europe too. So this may be quite an attractive prospect (similar to Klopp becoming head of the red bull franchise)
Heard a rumor that it’s exactly this – basically CEO of Marinakis football empire, and at triple the salary. No idea how valid that is, but if true, I could understand making that move.
I agree – and I reckon that the club knew of Edu’s decision a while back and he has been working his notice period – hence the corporate reshuffle during the summer
Think it must be about player recruitment. We had a very poor window after letting go of esr, Nelson, Fabio Vieira and lack of incoming. We were so short of backup for odegaard, a winger and an extra striker. We lost out on many targets with raphinha, caicedo qudus and luckily mudryk.
We had quite a job persuading Nwaneri to commit to professional terms with us (we were not as successful with Obi Chido). I expect that as part of this MA made reassurances to Nwaneri that a path would be cleared for him to be integrated into the first team. So had we signed a back up for odegaard then what message would this have sent to Nwaneri? Say we’d spent £50m on a young player then Nwaneri’s path is blocked – and if odegaard had not got injured then we have another Vieira situation where an expensive young asset cannot… Read more »
We still lack a backup for saka and as a realist I don’t think you can count on nwaneri to even be a backup for odegard. A backup does not mean sit on the bench all games. It could be a versatile number 10 who can play across the front three. We could have tried for someone like qudus, raphinha, xavi Simmons and there are plenty of unheard talents who we should have atleast tried to get in. Arda guler and rodrygo at Madrid we should have tried n out matched any salary they wanted
You said you are a realist – then realistically how many of those players listed do you think would have been willing to join when they know that the players they have to displace are odegaard and Saka? Every one of the players that you listed would expect to be a starter. We had a talented young unknown as back up for odegaard and he did not get a look in when odegaard was fit. There will be quite a limited market for players who would be willing to challenge Saka or Odegaard for a first team role, they are… Read more »
Im not in absolute disagreement but then the way modern football is going towards versatile players and the number of games, having a bigger pool of quality players is vital and I bet you if you pay better wages you can get anyone in the market. Arsenal is still a top club and most players will be happy to play 30 games a season. Backup does not mean sitting on the bench. Look at mancity, they’ve had mahrez, silva, foden,sane, sterling, grealish kdb all interchangeable, even now foden dsnt start n you still hear no mumbling cause he knows he… Read more »
I don’t think we can really compare what Man City have done to what we can do.
We are already sailing pretty close to the wind on FFP
I don’t believe a top footballer thinks like this. Most with the right mentality would back themselves to compete with Saka and Odegaard. We play alot of games and we are supposedly a top team. Stands to reason anyone coming in would expect to compete with a good player. You can’t create a winning nature with a two tier squad. We saw that in previous seasons when we suddenly had to rely on Nelson, Holding, etc. Everyone has to be on a certain level. Regardless of whether they are starting every game.
Those with the mentality that they can compete with Saka and odegaard would be a bit deluded. And if they are good enough to back it up their unlikely levels of confidence then I look forward to seeing us with two ballon d’or level players in every position (whilst also maintaining squad harmony and team spirit and a wage structure that doesn’t bankrupt us 😁) I get that we need squad depth – and we do have it in most positions – but these are £100m players we are talking about – so we’d need £100m replacements to have a… Read more »
We are not asking to get wirtz or musiala for 100m
Qudus, Simmons, sesko, aourar, guler, yildiz cherki olisse are some 40mil bracket players that can definitely lift our squad.
I do agree – I’m just not sure we had the money in place this summer…
It might have been Williams or nobody this summer, but I don’t regret Vieira and Nelson going out. Likeable players, but they didn’t move the dial and the problem is more the resistance to playing Nwaneri for me.
I remain unconvinced by Merino, but you have to give him some time.
What the fuck!?
I wonder if something broke between him and Mikel this summer.. did one of them not want to sign Merino?
Or did one of them want to improve our left wing to at least 70% of what the right wing offers?
Unrest in the camp perhaps is unsettling the team?
Most probably playing with 10 men in games and playing other games just days after killed our momentum
Maybe they found out before Newcastle, the whole team seemed unfocussed.
Doubt it would impact the team in that way. If my line manager’s line manager was moving on I wouldn’t really give a shit.
Just add more bad news s*it to the pile, that’s our season it seems
I’m not usually a doomer, but sadly this was my feeling too 🙁 so early in the season to be thinking like this. What a difference a few weeks makes in football.
Not writing off the season yet. Just win the Champions League and the FA Cup and Carabau Cup and I’m good.
Well, we can’t decide what people want to do, and we aren’t entitled to an explanation. There could be all sorts of reasons for this, and often when people switch jobs, it’s not just a question of money. Sometimes we need to change the scenery, and that happens in any business. Not many of us would put the needs of our current employer before our own needs, and nor should we. If he goes – as it looks like – it’s nice to have someone leave the club not through some drama, or due to horrible performance. He came in,… Read more »
Yeah but little Kroenke should do more to stop him. I am not sure we have heard anything so far that is the case.
Couldn’t have said it any better. People need to calm down. We’ll be fine.
Who’s to say we won’t get someone better than Edu?
I agree with almost everything you wrote. Apart of that he did a great job. I would argue that he did OK, or he did a decent job but I would never say great job. Apart of MO whose purchase (had initial risk) turned to be worth every penny, there is really not enough arguments to say that he did great job. There were failure buys, as there are at any other club, but we never managed to get anything significant when trying to offload them. We didn’t generate anything for Özil and Aubameyang (we actually paid the to leave).… Read more »
Not surprising. It was a really really poor summer window with an array of head scratching decisions
That’s a shame and even more considering the timing.
Obviously Edu wanted to sign a centre forward and another attacker this summer, but Arteta blocked him and said “No I want another goal keeper and more defenders”. Would drive anyone mad 🙂
Since when did “Obviously” = I’ve got no idea but I’ll have a random guess?
DejaVu. Was saddened by his departure nearly two decades ago and now all over again. But that also means two good spells with the club so I will always be grateful. Best of luck Edu.
Reality is a power struggle has been brewing for some time. Vinai may have held the CEO title, but I don’t think anyone really saw him as pulling the strings. Garlick took the MD role (note, taking Vinai’s responsibilities but not the CEO title) and appears to have brought James King back to the club into his former role as director of football operations. Then when you’ve got Josh Kronke and Tim Lewis essentially between them covering really key decision making, Edu’s own role becomes a bit squeezed, limited to really football specific stuff outside of the manager’s remit. Ultimately,… Read more »
This would explain the timing since James King came back on 24/25th October!
To me this is not such bad news, always seemed like a part of the bad era of don Raul… He did adapt well and survive the purge however, that sour taste stayed. Good luck, change is part of life, hope we sign a top DF that will be even better.
Marinakis has made a lot of comments about wanting to poach Edu to help run several clubs, so that would be a different job entirely I guess.
This makes me sad, I’ve always liked Edu. It also worries me that the supposedly happy hierarchy isn’t actually a happy place at all. First Vinai and now Edu must surely impact Mikel, they seemed to get along so well. It’s been the first time in a very long time that I’ve really liked the people in charge. We wait and see I suppose, but it’s very disappointing. Maybe he just wasn’t very good at buying and selling players?
This is a sad news, quite unfortunate, and concerning. I hope this does not unsettles our manager. He is a close ally of Arteta’s and they have done exceptionally together. When a coach/manager(in this case, Arteta) is unsettled internally, it finds its way to the field.
Who will Arsenal bring in as replacement? Will he/she work well with Arteta and the team?
This is really concerning.
I sincerely hope this move does not unsettle the team.
Really sad.
Reminds me of Wenger and David Dein
*unsettle
Sad to hear it, Arteta and Edu felt like a really great combo, maybe now we need something new?
Shit!
Tottenham!
Crikey, that’s a bolt from the blue.
This is all about ££££
Really not ideal timing
It’s the Daily Fail – don’t believe a word until it comes from a reliable source…
Blogs doesn’t report it unless it’s legit.
Yeah, but most papers sports journalists, are very different to the papers themselves
A change will be good. We need some new influences and ideas. Let’s face it we are in a down cycle. Change is good.
I really hope our progress in not limited to 2 seasons of finishing bridesmaid only to gently slide backwards into obscurity. Unfortunately there have been some red flags developing since the end of last season which tend to have consequences.
We need a new manager. MA has done great getting us this far but I don’t think he has the capability to push through that winning barrier.
Liverpool had a top manager and only managed one league win when there were no fans. The amount of money City invested makes it nigh on impossible unless you have the perfect season.
Maybe if the last transfer window wasn’t such a disaster, I would feel worse about the news. Now, I don’t know. Certainly surprised, but we don’t know what is happening behind the scenes. Were some bad summer decisions, or lack of them, attributed to Edu? Or Forest is just drowning him with money? Who knows.
Forest are supposedly trebling his wages. Although I like Edu because of his playing days, it’s hard to pinpoint what his contribution means to the current team. We’ll just have to wait and see.
And rightly so! 105m for Declan because Arteta insisted? Half price eh? Guy cant even turn with ball at feet, cant pass through the lines. but he runs a lot and shows pashun. Our midfield has become agricultural. Oh dear Arsene forgive them! I would give both Merino and Rice for an Alex Song right now. Why is Pedro Neto at Chelsea?
Neto is at Chelsea because we’ve had a bellyful of injury prone players at Arsenal. You have to play him sparingly, or face the consequences.
Also we need wingers with goals and his output is pitiful.
Not that bothered. The squad management of late has been chaotic and it’s why we’re 5th. Kroenke will want more from his investment. Edu probably feeling the heat and jumping before being pushed. No one is irreplaceable…
Whatever the reason, it’s not a good look and the timing is terrible
Well Forest are ahead of us in the table, LOL!
😂
Replace him with one of the left backs.
He looked at PL table and thought it was promotion to higher placed club 😂
If the recruitment is data driven, then you basically need an elite negotiator to pay what or close to what you want the club to pay, Edu, Garlik, wee Kronke doesn’t matter. What’s more concerning is that, Arsenal are going to go another season trophyless, with any one of Chelsea, Liverpool, or that lot going (in then league cup) to sweep up what C115ty don’t win. The squad is really second to none in the epl, & we do “have the right” to expect a higher level of performance! Or we go back to, being resigned to just, enjoying the… Read more »
The timing seems pointed.