Edu’s shock exit will have an impact on Arteta
There have been whispers for a while about talks taking place with Evangelos Marinakis about a role overseeing his football group, but it was certainly not seen as a given that he would move on.
So his seemingly imminent exit has caught people off guard, with an official announcement from Arsenal about his future expected soon.
I’m flying out to Italy on Tuesday for the Champions League game with Inter and I will be at Mikel Arteta’s press conference, which is due to take place at San Siro at around 7pm.
It will be interesting to see if Arsenal make an announcement before then. I would expect that they will, just so they have something official out there before Arteta has to sit in front of a room full of journalists, but we’ll have to wait and see.
I’m still a bit torn myself in terms of how Edu’s departure will impact the club.
There is no doubt he has done a great job since his return to the club in 2019. Not every deal he has made has been a success, but the majority have worked out well and that’s all you can really ask for from a sporting director.
He and Arteta have worked very well together. They have been aligned in what they have wanted to do and together they have moved the club forward in a big, big way.
They have overhauled and built a squad that is now full of excellent young players that have had Arsenal challenging for the Premier League title for the past few seasons.
Arteta and Edu have a good relationship. They trust each other. Arteta knows they are on the same page and that is very important because it creates stability behind the scenes and that is absolutely vital.
So Edu’s departure will impact Arteta. That’s obvious. But it shouldn’t be seen as a disaster.
Sporting directors come and go. It’s a role at football clubs which always comes with a pretty high turnover in terms of personnel. There are others out there that can do the job, so the important thing now is that the club chooses a successor wisely.
Arteta will have a strong say in that, along with Richard Garlick, Arsenal’s managing director and director Tim Lewis, who make up Arsenal’s football leadership team.
Making the right appointment is crucial. If they get it right, the new man could come in and bring a fresh outlook to the role which could help Arsenal in the long-run.
So it’s an interesting one to really assess right now. It’s a bit of a step into the unknown for Arsenal again after a period of stability under Arteta and Edu.
The unknown can be a bit daunting of course, but it can also be exciting. It’s just about making sure you make the right decision at the right time.
Something has to change for Arsenal to get back into the title race
Manchester City’s defeat at Bournemouth on Saturday did soften the blow somewhat of Arsenal’s defeat at Newcastle.
That defeat means that the gap to City is still just five points, which while being far from ideal, is also far from insurmountable at this early stage of the season.
One thing that is for sure, however, is that Arsenal are going to have to find some form fast if they are going to remain within touching distance of City and Liverpool at the top of the table.
The performance against Newcastle was worrying. It was just so, so flat. It was very similar to the Bournemouth game in many ways.
There is a real lack of spark at Arsenal at the moment. Without Martin Odegaard it is tough to see where the creativity is going to come from.
Arsenal did OK in the immediate aftermath of Odegaard’s injury. Arteta rejigged things a bit, with the shift to a front two of Kai Havertz and Leandro Trossard working quite well in the absence of their captain.
But it does feel like that tactic has run its course a bit. Teams seemed to have wised up to it and Trossard’s form has also fallen off a bit of a cliff in recent weeks.
And you can see – especially away from home – that Arsenal are looking quite easy to play against.
I just don’t think the midfield pairing of Declan Rice and Mikel Merino works very well. It might in the future, but right now with Merino still settling in and Rice far from his best form, it just makes Arsenal a bit one dimensional in the central areas.
It feels like the only way that something is going to happen is if Bukayo Saka gets on the ball. He’s the only real threat and you need more than that if you are going to open sides up at the top level.
So it feels like Arteta has to change something quickly if Arsenal are going to get back on track.
They have two very difficult away games to come this week, first at Inter in the Champions League and then at Chelsea on Sunday. If he does the same thing that he did at Bournemouth and at Newcastle, it’s difficult to see the results being any different.
Odegaard is close to a return now which is a positive, but he’s going to need some time to get his fitness and sharpness back so you would expect he will be slowly eased back in.
So Arteta will need to find another solution. Whether that be trusting Ethan Nwaneri to start, or bringing in Gabriel Jesus or Raheem Sterling I don’t know. But it does feel important that he tries something new to get Arsenal out of this slump they find themselves in.
The title is not gone yet. There is still a lot of football to be played and a lot of points to be won.
But things have to improve quickly at Arsenal or they will soon find themselves too far off the pace and that will be incredibly disappointing given the ambitions the club had at the start of the season.
