According to a report in Marca this evening, Monchi will leave Roma this summer and join Arsenal to reunite with Unai Emery.
The Spaniard has been one of the names most heavily linked with the job of Technical Director after the departure of Sven Mislintat earlier this month, and with his contract set to expire with the Italian club in June, the Gunners would not have to pay any kind of fee to acquire his services.
Monchi (real name Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo) spent years as the Director of Football at Sevilla where Emery won three successive Europa Leagues.
He also fits into the current Arsenal model which is about identifying young talent and developing them – and with Sevilla many were sold for massive profits.
The Arsenal squad will need some serious work this summer with Petr Cech retiring, Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck leaving for free, and question marks over a number of first team players including Mesut Ozil.
There’s an aging defence that needs to be rebuilt, and funds could be limited by parsimonious owners KSE, so bringing in players who are a bit under the radar looks like the way we’ll be going.
As ever, it’s worth taking stories like this with a pinch of salt, but there’s a lot of smoke around the Monchi fire, so let’s see.
Now that’s exciting.
I didn’t know about welbeck ☹️
Which I’d why it’s tidiculous some of these people wanting Mustafi or Granit out.
We will have a limited budget thanks to recent over commitments.
We have Koscielny likely too old to see regular feature.
We have Welbeck, Ramsey, Cech, possibly Ozil.
There’s also complete dead weight like Jenkinson and Lichsteiner.
It will be a massive ask to shed anymore players and expect to spend on quality with our sort of self sustained restrictive budget, particularly if we miss out on CL top 4 trophy yet again.
Where have you been? It’s only been doing the rounds all season.
Hope welbeck knows and doesn’t find out here first.
His contract expires in June but I don’t think it’s been officially confirmed he’s leaving. Surely offering him a new contract is cheaper than buying a new player but maybe Emery doesn’t rate him.
They did offer him a contract (same wages). He declined it. Allegedly.
Finally, something Arsenal has done that I agree with, lately
Have the club been doing that much that’s disagreeable recently?
Özil situation, Mislintat, Ramsey….
Thank you, Goo-nerd
Well Mislintat is leaving because he wanted this job, so does the club really deserve blame on that? Not sure. The Ozil situation is murky, for sure, and I honestly think Ramsey moving on is not the end of the world but, yeah, I am irritated the club didn’t get a fee for him
Ornstein knows.
We’re average, we have a fair few players to replace, and that’s before we even look at upgrading elsewhere. Our budget looks measly…. This guy would need to pull at least 6 quality players out of a hat… for roughly £6mill a piece. I just don’t see it happening. My guess is our fan base will drive Emery out, certainly by the end of next season, we’ll replace him with someone who’s got the same problems Emery faces, but our fans will also hound him out by the beginning of the 2022 season, at which point we’ll still be average,… Read more »
Cech, Monreal, Lichtsteiner, Koscielny, Mustafi, Xhaka, Ramsey, Welbeck, Jenkinson, and Elneny should all be off the wage bill this summer. That’s a lot of new faces if I had my way
That’s not very realistic
Ramsey, Cech, Koscielny, Welbeck, Jenkinson, and Elneny are certain to leave. It’s not unrealistic that the others on my list will also leave
Koscielny isn’t
This is a good thing. Current Transfer team has not done anywhere as well as some would prefer to wank off to. Over extended on Ozil contract, added unecessary older players on high salaries, mucked up with Mhkitaryan (low hanging fruit) instead of grasping the opportunity in Mahrez that we have needed. There has been little attention to strategic outlook and we are paying for that with restrictions and panic loan this January. Things need to change. Monchi has a good understanding of what Emery needs and how he operates I said it in the summer that Unai was giving… Read more »
Well if you’re going to lose arguably the best youth scout, the best you can do is replace him with the next best thing. Would be interesting to know what his methods are and how it differs to Sven.
Just hope we don’t go from Dortmund players ala Auba, Mikhi, Sok, to Seville/Valencia players like Banega or Nzonzi. lol
The N’zonzi that put up a masterclass display when Sevilla knocked Utd out of the CL at Old Trafford last season is a player we could have really used. Both him and Banega played in a midfield two in both legs and were excellent throughout.
But yes, we need to focus focus on younger, less well-known talents. Maybe a creator who can help us move on from Ramsey and Özil.
Banega too put a masterclass performance vs man utd. Most chances created in a CL match last season. And overall he tallied most chances created in the competition. Both are quality players and the only reservation I have is age.
Mikhi was Europe’s greatest assister at Dortmund, etc.
As you pointed out, their age makes them the best A new Banega and a new Nzonzi? Sure, all for it. But not the originals.
Monchi isn’t a scout, he’s a technical director..
Yep I was gonna post the same thing. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have kept Mislintat and still hired Monchi.
Mislintat wanted to be the technical director.
We demand a poo-o-meter
now this is what i want and can get behind
Monchi is well-respected for his prowess, looking forward to a confirmed appointment
So is a lioness but we wouldn’t want one in the board room.
Speak for yourself
Well damn, Arsenal. This would explain a whole lot.
The plot err… gets thinner
Hopefully his input would help us compete for the title with the likes of Monchister City
Our defence needs monch more improvement.
We pay peanuts, we get Monchi’s?
I guess getting the Monchi confirms what we were smoking over here.
So we’re definitely signing N’Zonzi then. He’s around 30, has been at sevilla with both Emery and Monchi, been at Roma with Monchi, and been heavily linked to Arsenal while at stoke. Ticks all the boxes.
Oh and he’s in a position we don’t really need right now. Check.
If we ship out Elneny, we’ll need a replacement.
To replace what really? Haha
If we’re so low on cash as the reports seem to suggest, I’d love to see Elneny sold and replaced with Joe Willock.
I have a ton of respect for Elneny’s great attitude and dedication. But this makes great sense, and each player would get better opportunities for playing time.
Fingers crossed
Finally we have found ourselves a Director of football “who stands on the road and directs play right and left” in the words of our beloved Arsene.
Arsene really did spout some crap
He was right
Will he be (mon)key to the rebuild ?
Will Monchi be the man key to the rebuild?
Or, if Scottish, the mon key to the rebuild?
Only if he is a cheeky Monchi
According to the AS Roma website he signed an initial 4 year contract. Check his first interview but also on wikipedia. So how does it expire this summer?
Looks like Emery is sticking around regardless then. ?
Why would he not?
So the game plan is to become a high level feeder club. Who will challenge for cups but not titles.
That’s been the plan since we moved into the Emirates.
It would be hard to argue against that being KSE’s plan
I’m all for Monchi and Unai partnership. But it still remains a fact that every direction and mid to long term vision this club has had, suddenly gets a very short term decision which messes the whole point up. Almost as if we save money to spend later. Then suddenly someone says. Actually now you can’t use that money. Probably explains stuff like the Suarez plus a pound scenario etc. There is no point in Monchi until we get proper footballing leadership. And we are no clearer to understanding Raul’s ultimately the decision maker or does Josh nad his dad… Read more »
Hopefully Per and Freddie don’t get sent packing in the second-half!
Well we seem to be going down the Spanish route now
Does anyone know the whole ordeal with him in Roma?, and why he would leave so soon? It seems like they’re not having the greatest of seasons
I hope this is how it goes. I don’t really trust much that comes from Marca but there is so much smoke about this it looks highly likely. Monchi has a very good track record and makes the most sense as a replacement for Mislintat. Interesting how we’ve gone from Le Arsenal to El Arsenal. It seems that Emery could be here for a while as long as he regains and maintains a top 4 place or champions league football one way or another as the infrastructure is building to suit him. As long as he doesn’t have too much… Read more »
What does Raul actually do? What is his vision for the club? What is the difference between what Sven did and monchi is doing for Roma?
I would still have preferred the Sven experiment to have played out longer. I can’t complain about monchi’s track record.
If Sven was only a scout does that mean Raul or Unai wanted lichtsteiner?
Some of you lot think you are in Monchi Python with these puns, honestly…
I’ve seen a bit of Sevilla this season and I’m quite impressed with Sergi Gomez as a full back. Only 26 so plenty of years left