‘EDU OUT’ LEAKS AND WHAT’S LIKELY GOING ON

by .

You can pinpoint the moment everything went to shit for Mikel Arteta. It was a couple of summers back when Vinai put Edu out on his lawn to tell the world he was over the moon that Arteta had been given a promotion after 6 months and that they had both been put on the same level.

Yep, only months after Vinai and Don Raul had been flagged internally for having a not-so-great power-sharing dynamic… Vinai demoted his technical director to power share with Arteta.

Why doesn’t powersharing work? It’s very simple. We’re not programmed to share. Shared leadership is usually built on the absurd notion of ‘we basically agree on everything’ or ‘we’re adults, we’re more than capable of hashing things out.’

No. No. No.

Power-sharing goes one of two ways. There’s an alpha and a beta in all but name or there is a massive fight to the death and nothing gets done. Power-sharing is the worst on many levels. It’s confusing for staff because no one knows who makes the decisions. It slows down decision making and reduces efficiency. It creates toxic cliques because the loudest voices usually win. It’s generally very ugly. When there are two cooks in the leadership kitchen, everyone thinks they are accountable, or no one does. Every good decision everyone wants to own, anything bad can be blamed on the other. Just look at the mess of Willian, has Arteta owned it? No. It’s better to let everyone blame Edu, who could just as easily have pushed it through with his agent.

The Story

News seeped out of the club yesterday that Edu’s job is under threat. Tony Banks at the Express say he could be on the  chopping block and The Mirror are running hit pieces, a paper which John Cross looks after.

Now, I’ve told you from the start that Edu likely isn’t up to snuff. We’ve seen horrendous wastage under his ‘leadership,’ he was at the table for some of our worst deals under Raul, and his closeness with super-agents went from ‘Pete, you’re going overboard here’ to ‘OMFG he’s on a yacht with Kia and a disgraced exArsenal exec’ this summer. People keep on joking about the BBQ outrage, but the people doing that don’t work in jobs with leaders that care about optics. If your club is on fire, you don’t want your main man posting holiday pictures on his public IG stories all summer. It’s a small detail, but when you are being paid a million+ a year, those things matter.

Back to the leak

It’s going to very difficult to work out where the truth is on this matter because there is clearly a power struggle unfolding at Arsenal. Mikel Arteta’s opening press conference wasn’t aimed at you and I, it was aimed at Vinai and Josh K. Arteta didn’t have what he wanted for the start of the season and that was the fault of Edu. No two ways about it, that was a shot fired.

It is clear as day that Edu and Arteta have fallen out. I mean, let’s be real, who hasn’t Arteta fallen out with? Our manager is transactional, he’s the Donald Trump of football, if you do not serve a purpose for him, he’s not interested.

The challenge for Josh is that both of them are underperforming.

If I were to run the numbers on this sort of scenario, I would conclude that the weaker party is likely Edu.

Josh K is about to sign off a contract termination for Willian that will likely involve paying a hefty fee to the worst signing of all time. Arteta was no doubt there, hounding the club to do it, but so was Edu’s and his smug super agent.

Our right-back situation is shocking. Soares is sitting on 90k a week. He’s awful. Arteta is begging for a proper right back. Who suggested that player? Kia. Arteta put that player on the pitch against Chelsea, was he our best right back? Nope. Did the decision stick it to Edu? Maybe.

Who brought David Luiz to the club on £200k a week when we could have signed a 21 year old?

Pablo Mari, another super-agent recommendation, has been at the heart of our problems this season. Where did he come from? The same super-agent that recommended Unai Emery.

Arteta is costing us points at the moment, but they have seen what he is capable of… and they have experience of a young coach at The Rams who has good people around him. Edu has cost the club money. After watching KSE operate over the years, which do you think is of more concern, lost money or 6 points at the start of a season?

If I were Josh K, and I was seriously considering the future of Edu (not my view, just hypotheticalling on the paper), then I would be thinking this way.

  1. Arsenal made a shocking error promoting Mikel Arteta, it needs to be rectified
  2. Edu was not the level of leadership needed to drive us from a Technical perspective, which is why he was demoted
  3. Any new Technical Director will absolutely need to be positioned above Arteta so we can gain some control a maturity in the backroom
  4. If we move fast, this new Technical Director will have 3 months to assess what the fuck is going on behind the scenes, so if the worst happens, they can install a new coach that is tailored to the profile of the players we currently have

If, if, if we are going to make a leadership change, we cannot do it based on a name. We have to bring in a Technical Director that suits the squad of players we have just signed.

  • We need a Technical Director we expertise in youth development, because we don’t have the money to compete at the highest level right now
  • We need someone that has worked in Europe, a huge miss with Edu
  • We need someone that can demonstrate a certain style of football that is pleasing to the fans. No point in hiring someone that doesn’t like the play posession based football, it won’t cut it with the fans
  • We need someone that can make a little go a long way. No point in hiring someone from Barcelona or Manchester City, because the remit is different. We need someone that buys low and sells high consistently.
  • We need someone with experience because there’s very little of that elsewhere in our football setup.
  • We need someone that is connected with deal making experience. Marina at Chelsea moves players on. Zorc at Dortmund always sells. Edu is shocking at this part of the job.
  • We need to find someone that isn’t drenched in dodgy stories of backroom deals and super agent boat trips

A battle between the Technical Director and a manager should only end one way, that’s with the manager exiting the club. The fact that there’s even a question over which struggling staffer should be exited is a massive red flag.

Arsenal shouldn’t waste the opportunity. Get someone in fast, get someone that can build around Arteta (or sack him), bring some control back to the club, shift out the dross that’s holding us back.

Now, all of the above is a bit of a guess, but I don’t think it’s far from the truth. We knew the Arteta/Edu story would end in tears, and we know the one things you don’t ever do with KSE is embarrass them, or waste there money. I think Edu has done both and I wouldn’t be shocked to see him shown the door.

The problem for Arteta is he might see that as a victory, but for me, he’s let a trojan horse in the back door… because no decent Technical Director will sit at the same level as Arteta, and if KSE have a single clue, they’ll make sure the wings of Arteta are well and truly clipped.

Interesting times ahead.

West Brom later. Must win. No excuses today. Let’s see what we have.

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Nelson

AMN is like Elneny in midfield.

Zfree

No real need for saka to stay on that long…

Bergkamp#10

There’s going to be a lot of Arteta propaganda by Pedro in tomorrow’s post.

MidwestGun

Oh good… walking around.. pshhhheeeew.

Luteo Guenreira

Don’t see why Saka has not been subbed out 15 minutes ago. City is only 3 days away.

Nelson

Chambers is such an average footballer.

Matt

Elneny really is terrible.

Globalgunner

You never see an Arsenal goal for weeks, then 6 come along all at once.

See, Castro’s a first teamer. Not all second string 😁

Luteo Guenreira

A bit of a boost in confidence from seeing the ball hit the back of the net is great, but the last thing we need is the players to come off this game feeling like they accomplished anything noteworthy by putting six past this WBA lineup.

FB

Bergkamp#10August 25, 2021 21:47:33
There’s going to be a lot of Arteta propaganda by Pedro in tomorrow’s post.

What a twat you are. Arsenal win. Good. No?

Bedwetter

Chris

Auba now has 88 goals in 150 games for Arsenal. Hell of a record.

Steveyg87

I cant wrap my head around what Arteta sees in Elneny

Nelson

An enjoyable football game!

DUIFG

This edu chat is a joke, he isn’t fantastic but when will you learn arteta is the issue .

He’s a maniac

Luteo Guenreira

“An enjoyable football game!”

Absolutely. Feels nice to have one, feels like it’s been awhile.

MidwestGun

Well it’s fair to say we could win the Championship. Now back to the PL.. Good to see some of our players gain some confidence though… Saka was great. I thought Ode looked in good form.. thrown in straight out of the gate.. Auba needed that hat-trick like nobodies business. he is a confidence player.

Tavares was good. Ramsdale fit in. about a million times better then that Runnarson dude.

Habesha Gooner

Okay. Good game. Now we need a performance against city. Not necessarily a result but a good performance to stop them and play some stuff.

salparadisenyc

“Well it’s fair to say we could win the Championship. ”

Ill take Middy, can you get us in there?

OCGooner

It is what it is, pasting against a 2nd team Ch side that deserved a pasting. Let’s take away the good.
-Auba’s mental/emotional lift
-Saka back to being Saka
-Superb debut for our new GK
-Quality re-debut for Ode
-Energetic, quality performance by Tavares (put him at RB)

MidwestGun

Haha yes I can Sal. just need to play like Fulham.

Champagne Charlie

Nice game for the minds of the players, plenty of touches, some goals scored, minutes in the legs, emphatic result.

WBA were absolute shite, that was a shambles. But….

Auba looked more his old self, Saka was good, Laca decisive, Odegaard classy, and Ramsdale assured. Also like what Nuno brought at LB, very raw at times, but good variety to his game and great engine.

The right side is a mess with Pepe and Chambers. The latter can’t get up and down to support, and the less I say about Pepe’s general play the better.

Danny

Good practise match, exactly what the team needed.
Elneny and Kolasinac must never play for us again but we’ve been saying that for ages now.

Le Sauce

That felt really good!!
Begs the question, can we translate this to the EPL where it really matters?

Samesong

Mari and Tets looked like they were having an interesting conversation.

raptora

Mari and Tets looked like they are going on a date with dessert tonight.

raptora
MidwestGun

Yep… It looked like Teta was telling Mari.. look I had to play Kola because of you.. And Mari told him to suck it. That was my lip reader hot take. hahaha

I think Arteta and Mari were swapping hair gel tips

Be a close fight between Mari and Tets as to who has the better hair and stubble

Elmo

That was the pre-season game we needed!

OCGooner

Mid,
The shot of Xhaka was “there were so many people around me, I just had to give them the ball”

Jim+furnell

Far too many children posting on this site. How can you possibly slag your own team off when they comprehensively destroy a bunch of shite put in front of them. Should be ashamed,

raptora

Monaco just scored one of the most unfortunate own goals I’ve ever seen… On the way of dropping to Shakhtar.

MidwestGun

Jim? names and quotes or it didn’t happen.. Seen nothing but people glad we won in a convincing way.. taking it for what it is. West Brom second team.

Moaning about the fictitious moaners. seems like the new trend today. If your talking about Recycled Sock….. did you just meet Redtruth today? He has been slagging off anything and everything in football since 1972.

RecycledOldSock

Champagne Charlie

Even you would look good against shite, on second thoughts, maybe not.

S23

The first time I have enjoyed an Arteta performance for a long time.
I know how bad WBA were,but I am going to enjoy it while I can.
Tavares and Ramsdale look like they have slotted straight in,Martin O is a better player for me than Ceballos.
Arteta looks like he is sulking again,didnt see him celebrate a single goal,this might be as good as it is going to get for him.
Fingers crossed for Sunday.

Samesong

MidwestGun
August 25, 2021 22:28:51

👏

MD-Gunner

It was a good and expected result nut an awful game. Clearly WBA is concerned about their promotion and couldn’t care less about the Cup thus they sent out a team with 6 debutantes while Arsenal sent out a very strong team. The odds for AFC winning went up once the team lineup was announced. It was pros against amateurs not pleasant to watch as it reduced this to a slaughtering of the lambs but good for the moral of the Arsenal squad.

Samesong

I know it was west brom 2nd / 3rd team

But Tets looked like he sat down most of the game. Think he should continue to do that and let the lads play their own game going forward.

Mulerise14

Thumbs up Habesha….. your links first allayed my fears,then I went back to listen to Ram’s interview (which I had not bothered to before),where he emphasised his style of passing (mixing up) and I began to hope….well he did mix it up real good, giving the backline the confidence to pass at d back without receiving not one hospital pass.hope he keeps up,iron out d weakness in his game.

Guns of SF

I think Mike was thinking about City the entire game pretty much.
Great win and finally nice to see us purring again.
Great morale booster

I think we need to pack our mids against CIty

451 or 352

Guns of SF

We need to protect width against City with their cross field passes, etc.
Cannot make the same mistakes with Chelsea and end up playing so narrow.
Basic stuff….

Havyn

Sack Edu
He’s corrupt
He pals around with questionable characters including Raul and Kia

Possibly receiving something under the table. Need to be investigated

NWM

Raul didn’t leave until August 15 last year so this is only Edu’s second window without Raul. In the winter window he identified and negotiated loan deals for Odegaard and Ryan, and offloaded players Arteta had sidelined.. This window he has signed, White, Tavares, Lokonga, Odegaard, and Ramsdale. Significantly none of these are Kia’s clients, so for me it begs the question, were the Kia signings driven by Edu or Raul. We knew when Raul came in he favored an agent based approach to transfers, (that’s in part why Sven left), so I suspect the Kia deals were Raul’s. I… Read more »

Peckobill

Very professional job tonight with some great play even though West Brom playing a weakened side but nonetheless the team needed that and by god did us fans need that Biggest plus for me is auba seeming to get his mojo back not just the goals ( 3rd was a peach ) but his body language was superb and if we got any chance to do anything this season we really need him on form . But please arteta leave him in the middle . I like Tavares , needs work but got some good endeavour about him , very… Read more »

Words on a blog

Great match, albeit against admittedly poor opposition – good to see Alba, sharp, smiling and scoring.

Today’s blog post really rings false. Really hope that Pedro’s not trying to set up Edu as the fall guy to cover for all Arteta’s mistakes and sins, as in (“Mikel just needs a strong technical director to compensate for his greennesss, galaxy brain, and arrogance”)

Now that would be weak sauce.

Peckobill

Words
An elite DOF would sack arteta , 3 times over he would have . Rangnick would tear his hair out at arteta’s devaluation of young players

Words on a blog

Peckobill,

I don’t disagree: an elite DOF would have sacked Arteta 3 times over – provided he had the authority to do so.

I’m not sure Edu has ever had that authority.

MidwestGun

Hmmmmm, Just now read the post… Well…I understand… Edu hasn’t done a tremendous job… with his contacts on Willian etc…. , but todays match you can see we have a lot of very good players. It’s up to Arteta to get them winning… that’s not on Edu. The criticism seems to be well Edu should tell Arteta what to do more? That’s not his job though…. his job is to bring in the players that Arteta wants. and to loan out or move on the players he doesn’t want. I think he has brought in the players that were targeted.… Read more »

Sly

Great result lads
Great for confidence
Edu isn’t the problem
He doesn’t have TD powers but is doing a reasonable job imo
Now back to the emperor…

NWM

Pedro In response to some of your bullet points: “We need a Technical Director we expertise in youth development, because we have the money to compete at the highest level right now”. The technical director finds the players, it’s up to the academy and/or first team coaching sfaff to develop them. “We need someone that has worked in Europe, a huge miss with Edu” If European technical directors are capable of bringing in South Americans, shouldn’t Edu be capable of bringing in Europeans. “We need someone that can demonstrate a certain style of football that is pleasing to the fans.… Read more »

Words on a blog

NWM,

A truly forensic rebuttal.

Sly

Nice post NVM

Tony

Good win last night unfortunately we could only watch a 20 minute highlights reel. Good to see Auba back to doing what he can do best score goals. Arteta looked subdued because he knew the real tests are starting Saturday away to City. I’ve said enough regarding Arteta and hope he goes soon. It’s time with our sleeping giant to wake up again and yesterday was a good start. Arteta and Edu need to be moved on and Conte or similar with Overmars, Compos or Rangnick would be my short list. A couple of day to saviour the win and… Read more »

Guns of SF

Mike was mostly expressionless today.
I think coz he is thinking ahead to the city match
He is going, shit, my team just dropped 6… the whole world has seen it and dammit, I am going to City this weekend.
He is worried we drop 0 goals and get hammered. That is what he was likely thinking….
and of course, how do I BS my way into staying in this role?..

lol

Gonsterous

Good to finally wake up to a good result. Won’t get carried away because arteta once again made a mess of the line up. You don’t put in players you want gone from the club. The likes of kola and laca should not be getting games at all. Ala bellerin. That shows them, they are not wanted. They can either sulk or find a new club. When you give them games, they won’t move away. Ruthless when needed is not artetas strong point. Also I agree with midwest, Edus job is not to tell arteta what to do and what… Read more »

Gonsterous

If there is anyone needing investigating, it should be arteta and why he bought in so many useless coaches and no. 2s.

Why did Ljunberg leave and why were ex arsenal legends not hired to coach anyone?

Guns of SF

Gons

Even Wenger did not bring in any legends.
Arteta is an ambitious prick, so of course he would never bring ex players who were better than him. He is smart enough to know that would go down funny with the fans… who likely would like him to switch roles with ex legend.

Gonsterous

Guns

I’m not talking about flooding the club with legends but when you have the likes of Bergkamp who would have been a great role model for the players as well as a great coach, it really goes to show how fragile Mikels ego is.

Anyway, the win was good.. on to city, and more propaganda.

Ray+in+LA

I was disappointed that Freddie left after what is widely regarded as excellent work with the Academy players

I hope he finds a good landing

DivineSherlock

Things are not as bad as Anti Arteta guys make it seem and Not as good as Pro Arteta guys make it out to be. That is only my observation.

Rambo

Too bad Arteta won’t get too many of these third rate teams to dispatch this season, with no Europa League.

Guns of SF

Bergy once even volunteered ( no coaching) to help the team. I think in Wengers time but it was not heeded ….
He is someone who could help with an attacking schemes
but Mike wont allow that. It all about Mike remember

Guns of SF

One can argue that we do have a legend kinda in Edu
He is an INVINCIBLE
I was stoked when we got him… i thought finally someone who is invested in our successes.
But nope… he is a dope.

What I do like is Ek, bringing together the legends to help him run Arsenal if he does take over.

Fan contentment is huge. Ek seems to realize that

Tony

Thought the one touch back flick to Saka for his goal by Ode was sublime and unplayable by WBA. First game back with an assist is a good marker to lay down albeit it was against WBA with 6 newbies getting their first game. It’s really good Auba getting his hat trick, but they were typical Auba goals, which the PL are very aware of, so don’t afford him the space he got last night. What it did highlight was that if Auba gets the service, he will score as he has done before this dry spell. I said a… Read more »

S Asoa

Nearly put

” D

Edgar
2 DAYS AGO
What you can see is that Arteta is more stupid by the minute, so the only solution for us gunners is to get rid of this smoke seller. Since day one he has only shown a big arrogance, an incredible capacity of blame anyone but him, and worst than Unai, his instructions are totally confusing. If not sacking him today, we will be in a hard battle for relegation (with high odds to go to championship league) “

S Asoa

My reading of behind the scenes jostling for position is that Edu Gaspar is friend of Josh Kroenke, and both are playboy types who gel. But toadie Mikel Arteta got a link up with Stan Kroenke, smartly putting up a ” Values ” image a la Wenger, which is is a oxymoron since this pretender was a Everton import without those inculcated values but oodles of conmanship. In ultimate combat, Arteta would win although as pointed out by Pedro this would be tantamount to falling on a sword since no DoF of calibre would suffer a fraudulent Teta leading the… Read more »

China1

Great result. Game was too late for me but especially happy for Saka

Guns of SF

it will suck but need to use 343 against city

Muppetman

I would personally like this formation obviously requires a signing and no injuries etc. Enough ball players to control possession and then the 5 at back. Ideally a specialist DM would sit in front of back 5 but this isn’t football manager.

Ramsdale
White Holding Gabriel
Saka Tierney
Partey
Ode ESR. Aurora ( all interchanging)
Auba

Graham62

Good result against a WBA reserve team. Should help confidence.
Saturday looms.
Still want Arteta out asap.

kjelli

There is something in Edu´s appearance that disturbs me ?? He needs to be replaced. Send him on a
never ending vacation. Arteta needs to loosen up a bit. He’s too pragmatic as is.

Useroz

Good game. Let’s continue to learn from our preseason games, win or lose, so we’d fly off the line when the real season begins after Christmas…

Pierre

Tony
“Thought the one touch back flick to Saka for his goal by Ode was sublime and unplayable by WBA.”

Ozilesque.(of course)…..very nice touch and a very good start from Odegaard.

Useroz

Saka reported limping… oh well

Guernsey+gun

Credit where its due, good win notwithstanding the opposition. Arteta knows hes drinking in the last chance saloon, hence line up etc. I still expect him to fuck it up and get kicked out of said saloon.

TR7

Won’t draw any conclusion from a victory against second string West Brom team. The only hope is Auba gets his confidence back from the hattrick he scored because we need to have him scoring a lot of goals.

Habesha Gooner

Good performance last night. What it showed was how much of a confidence boost was needed. If we had matched the formation that Chelsea played, we could have shithoused to a result last Sunday. Tavarez was really good yesterday. He is an attacking nightmare for defenders on that side. If he had been a wing back with Tierney the left sided center back with pepe on the bench and we had played a 343, we could have stopped recce James and he would have been wary of Tavarez. Oh well. I don’t think we should go with a 343 against… Read more »

Terraloon

NWM LMarina at Chelsea has a lot of good young players to move on.. It also doesn’t help when your Coach/Manager tanks players’ values by making clear they don’t fit into the team’s plans. That coupled with the Covid soccer economy and in some cases Salaries has made moving players on in this window difficult. For example Marina has sold just two platers so far this window and one of those was made redundant by their signing of Lukaku. In addition, while BVB has sold 5, when you take Sancho out of the mix, the other 4 have brought in… Read more »

RecycledOldSock

Why did West Brom show up when they had no interest in the contest.

Valentin

Tony,

I don’t bother answering Confused Charlie anymore. The guy could start a fight on a deserted island. He has to argue to death just to get the last word even if the last word proves he is an aggressive obnoxious ignorant idiot.

Graham62

Valentin

I concur.

RecycledOldSock

Arsenal to qualify were at 8/15 earlier, they went to 1/9 after teams released

Gonsterous

Why did West Brom show up when they had no interest in the contest

So they don’t lose their sponsors. Also a nice day out for the fans to watch them play against arsenal. I mean, they don’t face PL teams every month.

Bob N16

What percentage of teams put out a weakened team in the EFL?

For a club like WBA getting back to the PL is the be all end all.; 46 games of graft. Their full strength team may well of challenged us but we had to win and needed to put out a strong team so the manager may well have accepted an almost guaranteed defeat. It would be informative to know how the WBA fans viewed the selection, I would guess a majority would have had a begrudging acceptance of the line up.

Sid

I was expecting to see Patino, Miguel Azeez, Okonkwo, joe lopez
But clearly someone is against the fans seeing the great work Mertesacker has done

RecycledOldSock

West Brom fans reaction to team lineup:

“Half expected a strong team for a decent cup run, oh well Arsenal into the next round”

“Omg we are going to get smoked”

“Extremely weak that.
Oh well a chance to see a few of the youngster just hope we can keep the score down.”

“Could of made the bench abit stronger… has the potential to be embarrassing. But hoping I’m proven wrong”

“Definitely losing but will be great to see the youngsters in action plus the king himself Ken Zohore”

Bob N16

Re(cycle)d – an acceptance of their fate!

Bob N16

Sid, you really thought Ramsdale wasn’t going to play or was post was all about your pushing of the BFG agenda?

China1

Despite being a third rate trophy I actually like the league cup. Without CL football we should aim to win this and the FA cup to compensate for invariably falling short of top 4

I’d take 7th and two cups lol

Daniel Altos

We are starting a backline of kolasinac holding and chambers yet there are some idiots who are telling us that mavropanos and saliba arent good enough to be at arsenal just because their god arteta said so?People actually believe this shit lol.Legrove has gone mad I swear

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