Edu Gaspar’s exit certainly took Arsenal by surprise. His resignation only landed on the desks of the club board on Monday morning, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The natural response will surely be to take their time. Unfortunately for Arsenal, time is the one resource that quickly runs out at Premier League clubs.
On first viewing it might be fair to suggest the Gunners are ready to weather the storm. Whoever replaces the Brazilian will not have to undertake the radical restructuring of the first team. The outgoing sporting director — expected to join Evangelos Marinakis’ stable of clubs in a more senior role and for a more generous pay packet — has largely addressed what he so memorably identified as the greatest problem for those in his position.
“When a player is 26 or older, has a big salary and is not performing, he’s killing you,” he memorably said in 2022. “In the past, 80 per cent of the squad had those characteristics and there was no chance anyone would buy them.” Arsenal are not without those players, they have not found clubs beating down their doors for Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus for instance, but they can offset that with some of the most valuable gems in the game.
Indeed, last year sports data experts at Twenty First Group valued Arsenal’s as the second most expensive squad in the sport. No wonder when they have the likes of William Saliba and Bukayo Saka on their books. Having such talents has propelled Mikel Arteta’s side into Premier League contention but their presence comes with one headache for anyone in Edu’s position. Woe betide the man who lets such gems slip through his fingers.
From the instant these two signed new deals in the summer of 2023 the clock was ticking on their next extension. So it goes when you have players who could walk into just about any team in the world. Four year deals for each were perhaps less than Arsenal might like but when you get a commitment from players of Saka and Saliba’s standard you don’t gamble over whether you can get another 12 months. Still, doesn’t 2027 suddenly seem rather nearer than Arsenal might like?
Real Madrid’s looming presence means it feels like a matter of when, not if, William Saliba’s future becomes a Patrick Vieira-esque annual referendum on the state of Arsenal. Bukayo Saka’s case might be different — he talks of Arsenal as “my club” and lights up when he’s reminded it is one he captains — but that is not a hypothesis worth testing.
The fear for Arsenal comes in considering what happened when Liverpool lost their transformative sporting director in 2022. Michael Edwards’ departure presaged two years of off field drift before he returned in the summer with Richard Hughes as his sporting director. By that time the damage had been done. In that time there were no new deals for the three emblematic players of Jurgen Klopp’s great side: Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Time for eyes to wonder, for Saudi Arabia and Real Madrid to prepare offers all the more lucrative given they might not have to pay Liverpool a thing. All it takes is a little organisational turbulence, even at a time of sporting success.
Come this summer it will be two years left for Saliba and Saka. It will perhaps be their final moment of maximum value. Certainly, if the Santiago Bernabeu lure is too strong for one of them, Arsenal need to know. They can ill afford to just be bedding in the new sporting director or settling into a new structure that will dictate contractual negotiations. Given that the opportunity will not be there for a Manchester City style transition — Hugo Viana is due to leave Sporting at the end of the season when Txiki Begiristain departs — Arsenal will struggle with a vacancy at the top of the club for several months. Even a manager as active across the club as Arteta can’t conduct contract negotiations on the training ground.
Arsenal have long been aware of interest in Edu, links with Nottingham Forest first emerged in the summer, but it is quite another thing to be ready to move quickly. That could be good news for assistant sporting director Jason Ayto, who is extremely well regarded internally. When Arsenal set out to hire their first technical director in 2019 — a role initially earmarked for Monchi — it was viewed as of great importance that any candidate have a working knowledge of either Arsenal or the head coach’s methods. Similar criteria five years on would not make for a deep pool.
Plucking the right candidate and doing so swiftly is of paramount importance for Arsenal. As their title rivals can attest, getting the wrong structure can swiftly leave you with all sorts of contractual problems.
