𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀? Arsenal have undoubtedly improved over the past 5 years thanks to a process led by the Club’s owners, exec team, manager, staff and players. I wrote a post on it which I’ve linked at the end of this thread. But improvement should be continuous and it should not negate concern about the ongoing process. And I believe there is cause to be concerned. Arsenal’s abject failure to achieve its objective of signing attacking talent in the past 2 transfer windows is a symptom of the issue and not the issue itself. I hear excuses such as: “Well, who moved”… or…“If we over-paid, we’d risk our other targets in the summer”. Neither are valid. Just because someone didn’t move, doesn’t mean they weren’t available. There are very few clubs with our pull and resources right now. The Deloitte Money Report, combined with known changes to commerial revenues, reveal that Arsenal is now matching Bayern financially. Only a handful of clubs could pull off the moves we can. So to assume no-one could pull of a move simply because a move didn’t happen is tosh. As is the belief that a £60m signing on wages of £150kpw would stop us making major acquisitions in the summer. I know the financials. It would not. Especially not with the owner backing it, which he did. The fact is, Arsenal were presented with options this January. Kolo Muani on loan - they turned it down. Morata on loan - they turned it down. Watkins at £60m - the owner sanctioned it but the exec team screwed up the acquisition and lost the chance. I’m certain there would have been others too. Players like Kai, Martinelli and Trossard already have ~70% of their minutes from last season and it’s only February. More injuries are coming, as we just saw with Martinelli. Recruitment discipline is about recruiting in a way to achieve both your short-term and longer-term objectives. It is not about sticking to pre-set deal parameters using a fair market valuation approach when your project evolves. This is not a competent approach. And that has become clear to me now. There is a lack of competence in the Arsenal exec team. People know about Edu leaving… but they often forget that Vinai Venkatesham also left at the start of last summer. Vinai was Arsenal’s CEO and had been at the club for over a decade. He was close to the exec during the Wenger years and part of it during the transition away from Wenger to Emery and then to Arteta. He was never rated as the most high-flying executive in the football industry. But do you know what he had? Actual executive experience! Vinai was literally the only person in Arsenal’s entire leadership team with any meaningful experience of leading a large corporate executive. Now they have none. Not in the exec team (bar Commercials) and not on the Board. The club chose not to replace Vinai from outside. Instead, they chose to abandon a CEO role and instead promote Richard Garlick to Managing Director. He was the club’s Director of Football Operations. Garlick is very well respected in the industry and seen as having incredibly high potential. He also has the breadth of experience in the football industry that could position him to be a tremendous CEO for the club (I was, and still am, a big fan of his appointment). But he’s never led a large corporate executive before. This is probably why he was given a smaller remit than CEO and was instead, appointed MD. This is a common approach when appointing high-potential, yet low experience candidates to a high-risk role. You limit the risk by reducing the remit and giving them the right apprenticeship and support…