Kevin Whitcher
It’s worth investigating why the perception of this summer’s transfer window has been so different. Why the Ivan Gazidis-recruited feet just under the door team being so lauded for the current window’s football news?
About ten years ago, when I was in the process of co-writing ‘Arsènal: The Making of a Modern Superclub’ with Alex Fynn, I attended a talk at Birkbeck College by the father of then Arsenal reserves coach Neil Banfield, Tony, who was in charge of Arsenal’s scouting operation in Italy and a couple of other nearby European countries. He explained how the scouting system worked in terms of the long term planning of the squad. Once a year, Arsène would meet with all of his scouting team and they would go through the short and long term requirements of the squad. The idea being that they could agree in advance about where they could foresee gaps in the first team squad. Agreement would be reached about whether an “internal solution” (as the manager liked to term them) could be found – i.e. promotion of a youngster or a switch in position of a first teamer (think Monreal at centre-back), or if the club had to recruit. At this stage, the various options being tracked by the scouting team would be discussed.
If one takes Banfield at his word, there was some strategic thinking at the club. So why exactly did the Arsenal transfer news in past summer windows have supporters tearing their hair out? At times, targets were secured early in the window – Lukas Podolski, Alexis Sanchez and Granit Xhaka are examples. But often, things were left to drag on, creating frustration. Arsène was of the view that you could only do most transfer business in the final week of the window. In addition, he had a reputation as a ditherer when it came to decisions on whether to secure a player, and could be quite stubborn. Apparently, when Liverpool rejected Arsenal’s summer 2013 offer of £40 million plus a pound for Luis Suarez it was Wenger who determined the club would not raise their offer. This, after pulling out of the deal to buy Gonzalo Higuain from Real Madrid. At other major clubs, decisions on how much to spend on a player would be made at board level, once the manager informed them of his desire for a particular player.
Two summers later, he failed to rejuvenate his squad with a single outfield player in the window that saw keeper Petr Cech arrive from Chelsea. This suggests not only an element of dithering as being the reason for the failure to get business done, but a fundamental lack of awareness that his squad needed improvement (and by extension that qualifying for the Champions League was good enough). It’s interesting to look back two years and see a target identified by Tony Banfield – Napoli’s Jorginho, has now been bought by Chelsea for over £50 million. It was the summer that Wenger purchased Granit Xhaka for £35 million. Jorginho would almost certainly have cost less at that time.
Of course, we cannot say how successful the purchases of Lichtsteiner, Sokratis, Leno, Torreira and Guendenzi will look in a couple of years’ time, but what the targeting of the first four players indicate is that there has been closer attention given to the areas where the squad is perceived to be weak (at least by neutrals). In addition, their securement weeks before the start of the season gives them time to bed in and become familiar with what the new head coach wants from them (with the exception of Torreira who will report back from the World Cup at best two weeks before the Manchester City game). What is also interesting is that fans are not clamouring for a big name signing, having accepted the principle that the club do not have cash to burn and must cut their cloth accordingly.
In a sense, being more efficient in transfer dealings should be no surprise given that staff have been drafted in specifically to work in this area, although it begs the question why this didn’t happen years earlier. There seems little doubt this was because Arsene Wenger refused to delegate, and it is significant that there are now effectively at least three people covering the roles in which he would insist on having the final say. Now, Unai Emery works with the players he is given, although will express a preference when asked. Sven Mislintat will make the decisions about which players the club will target and Raul Sanllehi will take care of the negotiations with selling club and player. Granted, Steve Rowley and Dick Law were in theory covering the same roles, but their results suggested either they were no good at their jobs or were heavily compromised.
Once David Dein was unceremoniously booted out of the club for his failed coup d’etat in 2007, Arsene was handed complete control of the football operation by a board who were ultimately culpable for allowing the club to stagnate as a consequence. By the time Ivan Gazidis arrived in December 2008, well over a year after Dein’s departure, it was too late to turn it around. The new CEO was full of plans to maximise the return from the squad for the money that the club were spending, but soon found the incumbent manager an immovable obstacle that foiled his ambitions. Almost a decade on, far longer than it should have taken, he finally staged a coup d’etat of his own, and saw the back of a man who became his nemesis, thanks to the club’s falling income as a consequence of Wenger’s tenure being allowed to drag on.
Of course, there is no guarantee of progress. The difference is that now, the strategy, the forward planning, is at least reaching first base. There might be another arrival before the window shuts (N’Zonzi from Sevilla would be a real statement of intent), but at least the bedrock of the necessary strengthening is in place. Even if there was a strategy in the last decade, it never involved finding a replacement for Gilberto Silva, a gap that was obvious to all and sundry, and as a consequence, Arsenal have conceded too many goals, the defence lacking cover. Tactics are a different matter, not directly linked to the transfer window, although the type of player bought may have been a factor here. We await to see if the defence can keep a better shape than they managed in 2017-18. The coaching should make that possible, assuming Emery gets his players more focussed on their positioning. It will be intriguing to see if Hector Bellerin noticeably improves under the guidance of a new coach, and perhaps some guidance from Lichsteiner.
