Sven Mislintat has defended his ill-fated stint as the head of recruitment at Arsenal, despite most of his signings turning out to be flops.
The German was the Head of Scouting at Arsenal between the end of 2017 and the start of 2019.
He helped the club land the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Matteo Guendouzi.
Among his signings, Aubameyang and Bernd Leno are the only players that are still making a contribution to the team.
Despite the failure of most of his buys, he insists that he doesn’t regret the players that he brought to the Emirates.
Instead, he says he would always defend them because they had the ability to contribute to the team.
He boasted that the signings helped the Gunners reach the final of the Europa League, went unbeaten in 22 games, and amassed a total of 70 points.
Adding that he felt things were going well before his exit.
Mislintat to The Athletic: ‘To be quite clear: I don’t feel ashamed of any of those transfers, on the contrary, I will always defend these guys. Not because they were my players but because they were Arsenal players and capable ones.
‘They were my players but because they were Arsenal players and capable ones. They turned up. The team went unbeaten in 22 games in all competitions, made it to the Europa League final and finished fifth with 70 points.
‘You can say that’s not good enough. But many teams would love to finish fifth now. I felt that we were on the right track and I would have enjoyed the opportunity to develop further at Arsenal.’
I suspect this article will attract numerous responses as in the eyes of many ex professionals turned punters, and of course fans, poor recruitment is considered one of the main reasons for our lack of success during the past 10 years.As a professional with a proven track record before he moved to Arsenal,Mislintat was highly regarded and I was one fan who looked forward to the emergence of quality signings to put us on the road to recovery.What we got was a mixture of good and bad with the likes of Lichtensteiner ,Mik and Sokratis falling into the latter category.To learn that he does not consider any of his signings as being less than”capable” is difficult to comprehend when the Swiz full back and the Greek CB are two of the poorest defenders I have seen in the red shirt.Scouts cannot be expected to get it right on every occasion but these two signings and to a lesser extent, Mik and Torreria, are examples of poor decisions made by a somewhat arrogant individual, who has a high opinion of himself.
Like you Grandad, I look at evidence when making up my mind, not plain personal bias for no reason, as some do. Mislintats buys were at best a curates egg andin fact more bad than good. As far as the evidence of what he did here is concerned , he cannot be regarded as much of a loss therefore.
Anyone who thinks Sokratis, Mkhi and Lichtsteiner ARE EVEN ADEQUATE needs serious help with their player assessment.
“Diamond Eye” he certainly was NOT, when with us, no matter what he did previously.
His record speaks for itself…plus his Diamond Eye nickname didn’t come from plucking veterans from teams, it was derived from his ability to find hidden gems who were usually younger players…the fact that we chose the crook Raul over Sven is indicative of the kind of mismanagement that has plagued this club for quite some time…at no time in our history did we need someone with his particular skillset more, as we should be employing a more Dortmund/Ajax-like recruitment plan, especially considering the potential financial constraints of the our “self-sufficient” business model
TRVL, I know who I would trust more between Raul Sanheili and Sven Mislantat. Mislantat was never going to have a 100% record and I know who will be missed more between the two.
Depending on super agents and Brazilian connections isn’t going to allow Arsenal to reicate the success of Ajax or Dortmund or Monaco.
OG—maybe we should have developed a pipeline of young talent from South America, with Diamond Eye at the wheel…fact is teams still have scouting departments, they’ve just been massively downsized, but when you have the right individual in charge of these new, streamlined versions, I think you could still produce impressive results…to me it’s all about the eye test and if that’s the case I’ll take Diamond Eye every time
RVL I personally agree with considering the Dortmund/Ajax model as in so many ways it suits us.
But we both know that most fans would not accept the perceived drop in status from being an elite “final destination” club to an intermediate finishing school and “feeder club”, which is how both Dortmund and Ajax survive financially.
Heck we cant even let Balogun leave without cries for Arteta to be sacked.
Guy—adopting this model doesn’t necessarily mean a functional status drop as both of these teams have League titles and Champions League practically every season…I get that they might be in “weaker” Leagues, more Ajax than Dortmund, but they don’t usually get tossed out of Europe in the knockout rounds…both have seen the the final four in recent years…likewise, they both have experienced players, to provide balance and prove that they’re trying to compete for things(Reus, Hummels, Can, Tadic etc…)…so although they clearly sell players on, it’s not like they don’t reinvest the vast majority of these profits back into the club…as for Balo, that would have been a moot point, as he would have already played significant minutes at both of these clubs…the real beauty of this model is that the players themselves, and their respective agents, view these clubs, when done properly, as a much-desired destination…frankly, I would gladly take two years of watching the amazing footballing stylings of one Mr. Haaland, than NONE
I would be very happy if he would come back maybe for the position of Edu.. i have nothing against Edu but i trust Sven’s record more.. just dont go for experienced players but for the hidden gems
He brought in a mixed bag, didn’t he? with most of it now in the damaged goods department. I was excited at the time, thought that Gandouzi and Torriera were exactly what was needed, but it’s now clear that one had a limited skills set while the other was physically unable to boss it out. As for Socrates and the Swiss full back, well I was scratching my head even then wondering what Arsenal were going to do with more deadwood. Whether or not he could have consolidated with better signings in his second season after more time to assess the team’s strengths and weaknesses is now hypothetical.
Then Joe it appears you agree with me that at, best, his signings were – taken overall- considerably less than thrilling and in fact a rather less than average bunch, I stress TAKEN OVERALL,though!
Th etrouble with having a nickname such as Diamond Eye when he came, is that SOME fans look no further than reputation, whereas I am one who soberly looks at evidence of what he did HERE. And that was below par, I regret to report.
Out of all his recruits, how many have been a success at Arsenal?
I would love to keep this guy…remember socratis was only a cheap aolution when arsenal choosed to not give the funds for soyunku, who has been great for leicester. Guendouzi has a lot of potential and sell him for only 25 mm would be a mistake. Miki was only a last solution for the alexis problem and miki is a great player. He was awesome for dortmund and great for rome.
Pepe have started to show more but i know sven would have do much better.
Lugdush, So Sokratis was a “solution” then, albeit a cheap one! Odd that, as I’d always seen him as a problem, NOT a solution!
I have trawled right through the list of Wengers long list of dud CB over his 22 years, starting with Senderos and ending with Mustafi, and I can think of ONLY SCHILLACHI, who was worse than the wrestler Sokratis. HARDLY A SOLUTION THEN, I’D SUGGEST !