While it may seem like the recent firing of now former head of football Raul Sanllehi may have triggered this feature, we’ve been planning to write about the state of Arsenal for some time as we thought the North London giant we serve as a great case study into what causes once great clubs to fall apart at the seams. In our view, Arsenal are not there yet but as you would see reading on, Arsenal from organizational point of view at least, are close to becoming totally from becoming irrelevant as the club continues to fail in five key areas we think can kill a club without improvement over time namely finance, recruitment, coaching/development, systems and morale.
No club is owed success but Arsenal’s current flirtation into irrelevance is concerning on a number of levels as many of the issues (with the exception of low morale) addressed in this piece are not especially difficult to fix and with some direction, may improve but the decision currently shaping the club leave a lot to be desired to say the least.
Finance
Finance is integral in most sports but it's almost a matter of life and death in football. While money doesn’t always buy success in football due to the game to game unpredictability of the sport but over time a team that invests heavily and wisely will see success with the rapid rise of Chelsea and Man City being prime examples. However, this isn’t always true as many clubs have tried to spend their way to success whether that meant staying in the premier league (Fulham) or breaking into the top six (Everton) but come up short none more so than the Leeds United team of late 90’s and early 00’s. At the beginning of this century and for much of Wenger’s reign, Arsenal developed a reputation of being prudent spenders with the club avoiding flashy signings even when it at times stifled the team ability to compete with its peers who could either had wealthy benefactors which allowed them to operate at a loss (Man city and Chelsea) or long term legacy competitors like Man United and Liverpool whose success and ability commercialize on their storied histories allowed them generate revenue even when both clubs struggled.
The club employs a self-sustained model that has largely been successful for the last two decades until last year the club its first loss in 17 years. However, what concerns us is Arsenal’s current financial position with the impact of COVID 19 crisis, recent job cuts of non-playing staff, and the first team in need of a dramatic rebuild, it begs the question where Arsenal will find the money. Despite being one of the most derided club owners in recent memory, Stan Kroenke may be forced to bankroll the club in its time of need.
This concerns about the state of club financially is not lost on other key figures in the club as Mikkel Arteta has voiced his concerns about the potential of funds not being available for a rebuild he’s well aware will decide his fate at the Emirates. With the club out of Europe, linked with needed but expensive personnel (more on that later), it looks like Arsenal are going to struggle despite recent improvement in on field results.
The simple truth is that even if Arsenal were at the top of their game in the other four areas, the lack of funds will seriously hamper the team ability to reach its full potential or even succeed despite around improvement. Arsenal finances are not exclusive to them but endemic of football as quite the economics of football are questionable at best and outright unworkable at worst.
From a pure business perspective, football is possibly the worst business in the world if you're looking to make money as on pitch results are unpredictable, costs (particularly transfer fees and players wages) are always on the up and owners constantly under pressure to pour money into a club they know they won’t get back. The only thing that makes a football club worth to its owners is the rising value of the club which is largely driven by on pitch success but in Arsenal’s case until recently, significant success hasn’t been forthcoming to say the least.
In any case, Significant financial pressure ultimately may see the club fall into a sustained period of irrelevance but with closer look in other four mentioned in this piece, this drift downwards has been coming.
Recruitment
Arsenal’s recruitment policy was once the envy of Europe as the club had developed an ability to unearth world class talent at a steal which had turned Arsenal into a powerhouse during the late nineties and early noughties but twenty years on, Arsenal prowess in this crucial area has waned dramatically. I was in my teens back then and even then, I used to wonder how they did it. How every time they bought a player into the team they seemed to slot in just perfectly? Even if a player struggled initially, why would they eventually turn into world beaters? What I was seeing as a kid was a club that knew how to identify talent, see how it would fit into the team’s system or style of play and then development that talent over time that saw Arsenal record transfer surpluses even as their edge in finding players at value waned significantly.
It’s been some time since I was a teenager but the current incarnation of the club, in the area of recruitment at least, is a far cry from what I was seeing in my youth. When I look at Arsenal’s recruitment policy today, it smacks of a club that has no idea of where it needs to improve. While the current team has talent, the weaknesses that has seen the club underperform and now drift into mild decline over the last few years, have not been addressed. However, this has been a long-term problem as Arsenal have been patchy to say the least at addressing weaknesses through recruitment for most of my adult life. I can remember hearing what seems like all my life Arsenal needing a defender and a midfielder (I’ll argue that this is because of deficiencies in other areas later) and today, Arsenal still look weak in both areas, especially when they don’t have the ball.
The failure to address weaknesses is one thing but Arsenal’s recruitment policy has been especially bad at getting rid of players that have outstayed their welcome which leads another weakness that has eft arsenal in a position where they’re currently relying on agents to fix.
In our opinion, Arsenal are paying the price for a poor recruitment policy that has left the club in need of a serious rebuild with players who have limited or no resale value. This means arsenal will have sell players at a loss as they’ve accrued no value through their performances on the pitch. With the onset of COVID 19 crisis, the funds Arsenal might have recouped from selling players are going to be considerably less as clubs will have significantly less money to spend on new personnel. Add to that most clubs in football operate at a loss or break even at best, depend highly on TV revenue and will be denied of significant matchday revenue thanks to COVID 19, the market for those players is weak at best.
However, looking forward, what concerns us most about Arsenal’s recruitment policy is not so much the long-term issue of not recruiting for weaknesses or hanging onto players too long but their growing reliance on agents rather than scouts. Like it or not, agents are becoming a powerful group in the game and are a driving force in why the market for players is so inflated so on the face of it employing a recruitment strategy that involves using agents appears to be a wise move. However, there is a threat that Arsenal can become beholden to these agents who have conflicts of interests that are hard to ignore. We're highly skeptical of clubs handing over their recruitment policy to agents rather than scouts because of these conflicts of interests as well as mixed record of agents leading a club on pitch personnel decisions.
There’s already evidence that Arsenal’s relationship with one agent in particular, Kia Joorabchian, is already having a significant influence on the club’s personnel decisions already with the club tying David Luiz to significant contract extension despite being responsible for a number defensive errors that has cost Arsenal.
Joorabchian has felt comfortable enough to criticize former head of recruitment Sven Mislintat, after reports came out that Mislintat had been forthcoming of the failures of the club from top to bottom with a particular focus on the club scouting department. To be fair, Joorabchian are well founded as Mislintat recruitment record during his brief stint at the club is uninspiring to say the least. However, given his pedigree and record of success at Dortmund, Mislintat is well placed to spot what’s missing at the club especially when it comes to recruiting and identifying talent.
This encounter was strange because it's hard to remember the last time an agent publicly criticized a club’s former recruitment head ever. Usually agents stray from the media unless it involves one of their clients but why Joorabchian why felt emboldened enough to take a shot at Mislintat suggests that he knows Arsenal use and reliance on agents to recruit players will only grow. With the COVID 19 crisis weighing on the clubs finances, the club recently let go of 55 non playing staff but what was noticeable was much of the cuts were focused on the scouting department which is not unusual in football but for a club that’s been hit hard by the pandemic, Arsenal recruitment strategy should center on value which scouts are particularly wired to identify.
Football can be a cruel game and no one knows this better than football scouts. For how integral scouts are in identifying talent from under 10’s up to the first team, they’re often poorly paid and rarely get credit for identifying talent, that’s if their player recommendations are taken in consideration at all. They often have the most unstable job security in a sport with a notorious reputation for high turnover. While most scouts embrace the use of data identify talent, it wasn’t that long ago when scouts where being pitted against data analysts and now, they face a new threat in super agents with large client lists who can work with clubs directly.
This is particularly troubling as unlike data analysts, agents are in direct contact with players and also have the ability to identify talent or at least identify players whose value is likely to rise. Add to that to the fact that most agents often deal with high ranking club executives and even ownership in some cases, scouts can find themselves marginalized at their own clubs as scouts often work under a sports director who might respect their ability to spot talent but can ignore their recommendations. However, sporting directors often have to deal with agents to get deals done which means they have to build and maintain relationships with agents or risk getting cut off from talent down the line as agents accumulate talent.
What makes this worse is that agents also represent coaches and even sporting directors which could cripple a club's ability to recruit the best coaches and sporting directors should they fall foul of agents who represent them. A potential upshot of this is clubs could be forced to hang onto players, coaches and even sporting directors in spite of poor performance in order to remain in good standing with their representation. While this is unlikely (but far from impossible), what we’re already seeing at Arsenal is concerning as the club is already being linked to a number of Joorabchian’s clients which he directly benefits from if Arsenal recruits them. Add to that his close links with technical director Edu who worked together at Corinthians, Joorabchian influence over the club's recruitment policy could onset further stagnation as the club as they rely on the agent’s existing client list rather than building up their own database of targets.
What this all means long term is that Arsenal maybe able to bring in top talent but more often than not may end up paying over the odds bringing in players and keeping them if they perform well which may bring some initial success but when the eventually needs to rebuild the squad, Arsenal may find themselves tied to large contracts with players with no resale value. While this can happen anyway as clubs often buy players whose talents are dwarfed by their market value, this more likely to happen if clubs rely on agents to recruit players as agents depend on big transfer fees for their livelihood.
That said, an agency led recruitment strategy isn’t exactly the worst way to recruit players as it has worked at clubs like Wolves but this move by the club's hierarchy smacks of desperation as thanks to consecutive seasons without champions league football, Arsenal’s has become less attractive to high quality players which means Arsenal will find it harder to compete for with its rivals for talent. Arsenal, knowing all too well it can’t compete head on with the likes of Man City and Chelsea for players, has turned to agents lure talent to the club which may work short term but long term the conflict of interests and growing dependence of a handful of agents could potentially make the situation worse.
Coaching/Development
In writing this piece and looking back at the tactical development of British football, it's hard to imagine a club that’s had more impact on the British game than Arsenal. From encouraging better conditioning and dietary choices that extended the careers of legends such as Tony Adams and Lee Dixon to instilling a fluid and puritanical style of play that has influenced much of the football seen today, Arsenal has started or been at the forefront of every coaching and tactical evolution in the modern game for the last twenty years. Much of this can be laid at the feet of legendary manager Arsene Wenger, once nicknamed “the professor”, who took a more academic and analytic approach to game which produced game changing results. However, over the years, competitors simply copied then perfected Wenger’s innovations to the point near to the end of his 22-year reign, fans and pundits were accusing arguably the one of shrewdest minds the game has ever seen as outdated.
However you view Wenger’s reign at Arsenal, it’s hard not to mention him as in Arsenal’s story of decline as much of it started with him. Many of the issues explored in this piece have their origins Wenger’s overbearing influence over the club as Frenchman was possibly the most powerful manager in European football during his reign. While Wenger earned that power through success, that success soon dried up when he didn’t have anyone to check his worst impulses. It's no coincidences that Arsenal’s relative decline coincided with David Dein leaving the club. Dein played a large role in Arsenal success in the pre emirates era of Wenger’s reign from securing deals for much of the talent that defined the club to bringing Wenger to Arsenal in the first place.
Even Wenger himself realizes the David Dein departure from Arsenal was a major turning point and noted his absence as a major regret. However, during his reign, Wenger was particularly apprehensive to the point of derision of a need of a sporting or technical director. He was able to do this because he knew he was more powerful than much derided former CEO Ivan Gazidis even if the appointment of a sporting director might have been to his benefit.
The appointment of a sporting director may have helped Arsenal capture top talent the club missed out on in almost every transfer window I can remember or even got deals over the line before the deadline. A strong sporting director might have checked his tendency to be prudent even with funds available to spend on new recruits or failing to address, through the transfer market, long term weaknesses in defense and a lack of physicality in midfield which saw his sides constantly get bullied by more physical outfits.
However, the problems that clouded Wenger’s long reign weren’t solely down to his stubbornness but his coaching style. One of the easiest ways to track the effects of coaching is the improvement of players whether its visible new wrinkles in their game or the absence of mistakes in their play that can be traced back to their coach but when players don’t improve, stagnate and even deteriorate, coaches are most likely to be blamed and Wenger is no different. Wenger is rightly credited with bringing the best out of players raw talents such as Patrick Viera and Thierry Henry but in our opinion can be also credited with ruining the once promising careers of Theo Walcott, Luke Wilshire and Alex Iwobi who now play for Everton and West Ham.
Another way is the players themselves singing the praises or criticizing their managers coaching style and methods and while players have largely been reverent of Wenger’s coaching style, there has been others who haven’t. Shkodran Mustafi, to the brutal derision of his own fans, sought to launch a subtle dig at Arsene Wenger citing a lack of direction or correction of errors.
It’s notable that Mustafi has heaped praise on his successors particularly their attention to detail as Wenger defenses over the last decade of his tenure often made the same mistakes in the same way owing to Wenger’s negligence of defensive shape. Wenger was renowned for ignoring the strengths of the opposition and which often left Arsenal exposed when plan A came unstuck. Mustafi is much maligned by fans because of his high-profile errors but given he isn’t the only defender under Wenger who has made similar errors for a sustained period of time suggest that the problem are down structural issues rather than personnel which means the defensive deficiencies at the heart of Arsenal defense for years lie the feet of the coach.
Even Tony Adams, a prominent of Arsenal’s legendary back four, sought to criticize Wenger’s tactical nous by saying the Frenchman “doesn’t do tactics”. What also noticeable is the praise heaped on Wenger from players high up the field as Alexis Sanchez, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and even Walcott, a player most blame Wenger for ruining, have praised Wenger’s coaching style. Walcott’s praise was particularly interesting as when asked to compare his then boss Sam Allardyce and Wenger, he was more than forthcoming about the gulf between the two when it came to coaching.
While people may point to the influence of Guardiola, Arteta himself admitted to receiving great advice from Wenger and helping him prepare for their FA Cup win. Wenger influence is still strong over the club with Arteta in place, the club is showing signs, at least in the realm of coaching and especially playing style, of moving on the legacy of the Frenchman.
With recent on-field improvement and an FA cup trophy to boot, you could argue that things are looking on the up for Arsenal but a closer look at club shows that Arsenal improvement over the last six months has come in spite of its failings as club. Much of the credit has to go Mike Arteta, former Arsenal captain and now Head Coach who has turned things round at the club in a short period without a real transfer window which makes what he has achieved even more impressive. However, going forward, Arteta is going to realize just how tough a job he has taken on as the chaos around him continues with the recent loss of Raul Sanllehi.
In our opinion, Arsenal have made the right appointment in Arteta as he has a clear vision of where he wants to take the club and with Sanllehi gone, he’ll have more say in shaping Arsenal in the near future. One of and possibly the most important job of a Head Coach is getting players to buy into their system and Arteta has in a short space of time managed to do that with several first team regulars including Kieran Tierney and Shkodran Mustafi publicly praising their manager training methods. Players have attested to greater intensity in training sessions with promising youngster Reiss Nelson praising his manager’s drive and commitment to getting the best of his players. While Arsenal recruitment policy has faltered over the years, Arsenal’s Academy has been flourishing in recent years producing a crop of young talented players that Mike Arteta can work with which could prove promising given his track record of improving the games of both Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling.
If there’s anything that could stop drifting into irrelevance it’s an ambitious and driven coach like Arteta as the Head Coach is responsible for three of the five areas mentioned (coaching, system(S) and morale) and at most clubs have say in another (recruitment). In Arteta Arsenal have a coach that has a great track record in improving players and playing style that fits the Arsenal tradition. Wenger has a lot to do with that tradition but with Arteta at the helm, the current incarnation of Arsenal have a chance of building on it rather than being burdened by it.
System(s)
For all the praise we’ve heaped on Arsenal revolutionizing the British game in regards to coaching and player conditioning, Arsenal deserve special praise for significantly changing how football was played on these isles. Wenger’s football philosophy was a cut above the rest as Arsenal played some of the finest football the game has ever seen. In the first ten years of his reign, rarely have we seen a team before or since mix raw physicality with sublime technique and vision so well and much of the credit for this achievement falls at the feet of Wenger and his ideas of how the game should be played. However, from the end of the invincible era which coincided with the move to the Emirates, there was distinct change in his philosophy.
For all the talk of the football produced by Wenger’s teams in the late 90’s and early to mid 00’s, Arsenal were one of the most physical teams in football with bruising clashes between their main rivals (principally Man Utd) of the era reaching levels of infamy that’s rarely seen today. It must have been a nightmare for rival opposition going up an opponent you can’t outrun, bully and outclass as Arsenal would routinely dominate teams in both physical and technical aspects of the game, producing some of the most one-sided games of football I’ve ever seen. However, with much of the invincibles era team in their thirties, Wenger sought to rebuild the squad but noticeably not in the image of the team that brought him so much success,
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| Cesc Fabregas. One of the first players signalling the club shift from physicality |
Always the innovator, Wenger was one of the first embrace the growing focus on the technical aspects of the game in light of referees on the continent (though not so much in England) protecting skillful players and laws slowly but surely outlawing the physicality of the game as a whole. What this meant going forward was the use of smaller but technically gifted players would explode and would produce the fast paced, stylish and technically proficient football we see today from most of the top clubs in Europe. Arsenal went full tilt on this focus on the technical aspect of the game and totally moved away for dominating teams physically which in hindsight could have been another masterstroke by Wenger as most teams in the league stuck to the old principles of physicality, fitness and organization. However, innovation is far from straightforward and as we’ve seen in business, innovative first movers aren’t always the beneficiaries of their creations.
What we saw for much of Wenger teams from the move to the Emirates onwards was a team that would routinely pass teams off the park and play some of the best football on the continent but also was vulnerable to teams with a physical edge who would often bully and/or outwork Arsenal. Mourinho’s Chelsea, Tony Pulis’s Stoke and Sam Allardyces’s Bolton would ruthlessly exploit their physical edge over Arsenal to great effect routinely eking out results by bullying and outworking an Arsenal side that simply couldn’t compete physically as these teams in particular reminded the club and Frenchman that football, in England at least, is still a contact sport. The growing use of physically against Arsenal was not lost on Wenger as he regularly called for referees to protect his players and was scathing of his critique of teams like Stoke (in particular) and Bolton who would use their physical advantage over his technically superior outfit.
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| Wenger and Pulis grudingly shake hands |
Most managers constantly seeing their team constantly getting ruffed up by more physical teams would address this by adding physical but technically proficient players to their squad but Wenger, whose stubbornness is legendary, sought to continue with this philosophy of valuing technical proficiency over physicality. Wenger’s persistence with this approach was in some way vindicated by the success of the Spain and Barcelona teams in the four period between 2008 and 2012 as we saw both teams routinely outclass teams playing the best football most observers would agree have ever seen.
However, Unlike Arsenal, both Spain and Barcelona benefitted from the international and European game becoming less physical along with a greater focus on technical proficiency in the Spanish game, at least when compared to the style of football the majority of English teams employed. However, Arsenal performances in Europe weren’t particularly encouraging either as Arsenal only made it past the Quarterfinal once in 2009 after their loss to Barcelona in the 2006 final. Arsenal, despite being one of the first embrace of a greater focus on technical proficiency, were regularly outclassed by teams who also could also outwork them which lead to them humbling defeats to Barcelona and Bayern Munich in particular.
However, Arteta clearly looks well placed to avoid the failures of the Wenger era and of all the areas we think might help halt the club’s drift into irrelevance is the system Arteta employs which stress the mental as well the technical aspects of the game.
Having worked under Guardiola, Arteta is likely address structural weakness that have plagued the club for decades, with his focus on communication, positioning and situational awareness along with an impressive attention to detail. Arteta has already made strides in making Arsenal harder to beat as for much of Wenger’s reign, Arsenal lacked a defensive structure which made them easy cut through on counters, susceptible to movement particularly in the half space and most glaringly, a disorganized press teams who could play through it would ruthlessly exploit and embarrass North London club.
While it's still early, Arsenal haven’t been significantly outclassed or embarrassed with the club securing wins against Man City, a club that has routinely made light work of Arsenal home and away in recent years.
In any case, in this department at least Arsenal have some hope that Arsenal can become relevant again.
Morale
Of all the things that can kill a club, low morale is in our opinion the most insidious because unlike poor financial management, questionable recruitment polices, ineffective coaching and playing styles, low morale can cripple and hangover a club for years. Cancerous in nature, it can affect every area of a club especially the areas explored in this piece. The level of morale at most clubs fluctuate over time but at Arsenal a cottage industry has boomed in light of the black cloud that has hovered over the club for more than a decade. The number one way to know where a club is mood wise is through its fans and unfortunately for Arsenal, they have one of the loudest, largest and vocal fanbases in the country. This is great when a club is doing well but if a club is risking a sustained period of irrelevance with the passionate fanbase Arsenal has, everyone will notice. However, the bad morale that has become endemic at Arsenal has nothing to do with the fans despite it affecting them the most. Arsenal fans know too well their club is flirting with irrelevance and are simply venting after having been forced to watch the club they love slowly but surely decline over time and not being able to do much about it.
They've beared witness for years to the questionable ownership decisions, poor recruitment policies, outdated coaching and tactics that left their club in potentially position which could get worse as the COVID 19 crisis has hit the club hard. but the low morale at the club has played a large role in Arsenal decline as complacency, a cancer in every sport, seemed endemic at Arsenal. Most team’s first team sheets are easy especially if the side has been successful but Arsenal’s first team was consistent despite poor play or a drop in form. This clearly affected performances and fans could sense that players weren’t giving 100% to the team. This links in to the club long term problem of not getting rid of players earlier who were clearly stagnating or weren’t a great fit.
While morale maybe high amongst fans and players after a FA Cup win and significant improvement in performances, what is expected at Arsenal in terms of ambitions is unclear to say the least. The obvious goal for Arsenal among its hierarchy is the return of champions league football to the Emirates but with COVID affecting finances and a squad in need of a rebuild, Arsenal may be forced to make tough choices that could affect the mood at the club for a long time. We’re highly skeptical that Arsenal can make these choices and achieve these objectives because the club has been one of the worst run clubs in Europe for a long time especially in the areas mentioned in this piece. The biggest reason why we think Arsenal are drifting into irrelevance is because the hierarchy at Arsenal don’t seem understand the club they’re running demonstrated when reports came out that the club attempted to bring Wenger back into the fold. While a Bonafide club icon and legend, Wenger is could possibly be the most divisive figure in the club's history and could divide the fanbase again when they need to be unified.
Add to that players not being happy with the decision to cut non- playing staff despite players taking pay cuts to save them and an ambitious Arteta agitating for a new blood in the face of a much needed rebuild, the chances are, on track record, the men in charge at Arsenal may make these potential fissures worse.
In sum, Arsenal has a great history and tradition but with its current hierarchy, the effect of COVID 19 on their finances, a failing recruitment policy that might get worse with the club working openly with agents despite improvement coaching and systems, Arsenal are drifting into irrelevance and unless changes are made, a once great club may be laid low by the long term mismanagement of five areas that matter.
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