Edu leaves in a hurry: why, and what next?

Morning all.

The big news to start today is the departure of Edu as the club’s Sporting Director. It began with some whispers over the weekend, they became more tangible yesterday morning with a report that he was set to leave, and by the end of the day there had been an official announcement from Arsenal who were not willing to comment earlier when the story first broke. A significant, and very rapid, development.

Entitled ‘Edu Gaspar resigns as Sporting Director‘, Josh Kroenke is quoted within, saying:

We respect Edu’s decision and thank him for his immense contribution and dedication to drive the club forward. Everyone at the club wishes him well. We are all so fond of him and the positive energy he brings to everything and everyone.

Change and evolution is a part of our club. We remain focused on our strategy and winning major trophies. Our succession plan will reflect this continued ambition.

While Edu himself said:

I’ve loved working with so many great colleagues across our men’s, women’s and academy teams, especially Mikel, who has become a great friend. It is time to pursue a different challenge. Arsenal will always remain in my heart. I wish the club and its supporters only good things and all the very best.

The new challenge, it seems, is to go and work for Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis, as part of his football group which is looking to Edu to front up its multi-club model. Reports that his salary has been tripled probably go a long way to explaining why this has happened, but this is a story that goes back some distance – with reports in the Brazilian press about it back in August.

The timing of it is certainly interesting though. It comes after a difficult week on the pitch, which doesn’t present a great view from the outside. It’s probably just coincidental, but the optics – as they say – don’t look brilliant. The fact that it’s mid-season too is far from ideal. Not only are we not too far away from the January transfer window, Edu’s role as Sporting Director gave him responsibility over the men, women and the academy, and after the resignation of Jonas Eidevall, there’s a vacancy for the women’s team that needs to be filled.

He wasn’t a one-stop-shop or anything, there are other people in situ who can pick up the slack and do the work, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have questions. People will speculate over a situation like this, discuss relationships and power struggles and all the rest, but it does seem – from everything that’s been reported – that this was a decision Edu made because of an opportunity elsewhere. My own dislike of the multi-club model aside, I wish him the best.

He is a very personable, charming man, whose connection to the club and it’s most successful modern era was important, and I think all in all he did a decent job in his time here. I don’t think it’s possible to detach that work from the work Mikel Arteta did with the team, but Edu played his part in his role first as Technical Director, then Sporting Director. Not every signing worked out, but lots of them did, and while I always had some questions about our ability to sell as well as we’d like, that also improved over time and he leaves after ‘his’ most successful transfer window in that regard.

I’m fascinated to see what Arsenal do in terms of a replacement. Will there be another Sporting Director with the same purview, or a different kind of appointment tasked with the men’s team only? Richard Garlick is Managing Director, we’ve brought in somebody recently to be Head of Football Operations, but that’s much more a legal/administrative role, so who will be that first point of contact with other clubs, agents, and so on? There is something to be said for having connections within the game, especially when it comes to recruitment and player sales (Edu’s own relationship with Marinakis, for example, is probably why we made a small profit on Matt Turner when we sold him to Forest).

It feels like whoever replaces him, it will be someone who is – in some part – given the Mikel Arteta seal of approval. A former teammate? Who knows? What does seem to be the case though is that the pendulum of power has swung towards the manager – at least for the time-being. Is that completely healthy? I’m not sure, but equally a new appointment, whoever it is, could work very well in tandem with him, and he might do things better or differently than Edu in a way that is positive for everyone.

Change is weird and scary, but it doesn’t have to be negative. A new dynamic could be a good thing. I think the speed at which it all happened has probably come as a surprise to the club, even if they must surely have been aware that something was bubbling away in the background. Still, there’s probably no need to make any kind of panic appointment, it’s more important to get the right person for the job. Let’s see who that is, and when it is, and I’m curious as to how expansive Mikel Arteta will be on this when he’s inevitably asked about it in his pre-Inter press conference which takes place in Italy a bit later on this evening.

For more on Edu, and his five year tenure since returning in 2019, Amy Lawrence’s piece in The Athletic (£) is well worth a read too this morning. I’ll leave it there for now, have a good one folks, and there’s a new Arsecast Extra below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet.

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