Arsenal has undergone a number of changes in recent seasons. Arsene Wenger was the club’s manager for over 20 years and the Frenchman set some structures in place at the club which helped him enjoy success as a manager here.
One of the key parts of the club during their successful years until recently has been the scouting department.
Through scouting, Arsenal has been able to sign some of the best players for the club and for their academy and some high-profile names who moved to the Emirates wouldn’t have come through if the club’s scouting system hadn’t been a good one.
However, in preparation for a transition from Wenger, Arsenal began to make some changes at the club and one of the major ones was to disband the scouting department which was headed by Steve Rowley, who had worked at the club for more than 30 years.
Tony Adams has blasted the club’s decision to ditch a successful scouting network that proved so successful in helping them sign some of their best players.
“My fundamental issue is with recruitment,” the former Gunners captain told Alan Brazil and former teammate Ray Parlour on talkSPORT.
“I think the club is going through such a recruitment issue at the moment.
“Relying on agents is not the way to go. It’s not Arsenal DNA I’m afraid. I don’t like it. I’ve got to say it publicly.
“We’ve got Edu and Raul Sanllehi who are running the show and, you know as well as I do Ray, Steve Rowley took 40 years to build that scouting system and 13 scouts have been sacked.
“They’ve put a bomb on it.
“Steve’s network, it did absolutely brilliantly, it got the best players from around the world into the club and into our own academy, and it’s just been blown up.
“Edu, I love him. He’s a beautiful man, a lovely man and it’s not personal, but he has no experience of building European squads.
“Even Raul Sanllehi, he came from Barcelona where all the money in the world, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to get money here!
“Those people are kind of out of their depth, I’m sorry.
“They need to build a fantastic squad that challenges for the league, and it hurts.”
True talk Tony, the scouting team shd be reinstated
He’s said nothing wrong. It is obvious Sanlehi’s game is playing around with his agent friends. It does not put the club first, and puts his own personal interests above what may be best, and what Arteta may want. This is not new though. We have been atrocious at scouting for a while and have been getting inconsistent quality for probably a decade now. This is very similar to what seems to be going on at United right now. But they are being bailed out by their academy scouting methods and academy players like Rashford, Greenwood, McTominay, who have all been great this season. They would not even be close to top 4 by relying on the likes of Pogba. Even for big clubs, your youth scouting matters and pays off. We went for a long time without genuine youth talent, and it’s great to see that Nketiah and Saka and Joe can have a shot at it. Particularly Saka. I dont want him having to bail us out of poor senior scouting tho.
Pogba is a product the Man Utd academy though.
Fair point forgot about that.
Tony said it all. That is the major problem Arsenal is facing in recent times. We spend over 100m last at the beginning of the season and we are still terrible.
Lol…I’m not surprised.
Like I said, soon y’all will see it that Raul is another fraud. Like Tony said, he came from Barcelona who had millions to spend to back up their transfer method.
Then he comes here, Scouting gets disbanded, we lose our scouts and also Sven gets pushed out and he says he prefers to work by contact and agents.
What’s the point of your freaking agents when Arsenal can’t spend the money the way Barcelona does?
Why not depend on your scout since you can’t spend a lot?
Common sense ain’t so common is it?
True 10000%
1. These days we usually buy short defenders (
While agreeing with a lot of what Tony says, I was under the impression (as some continually love to tell us), we only bought dross and mentally weak players!!!
If that’s the case, then disbanding the scouting system that served our previous three managers, would make sense… which of course it doesn’t does it?
Ken, You are right, as we have indeed bought very many mentally weak and dross players going back years and years.Mostly, though not all, supposed defenders and DM s.
I realise of course your post was a dig at me but also a dig at the truth that you will not accept. To think we used to have such mentally tough playrs as Cesc, Viera , Adams etc and now we have such as Ozil Guendouzi and Pepe, all either posers or trouble makers.
Jon, maybe just a little dig my friend, but the truth?
Well, was it the scouts who recommended the dross and mentally frail players as Tony implies?
If so, do you agree with the decision?
Tony Adams was a great player. But brain dead.