So this is the guy that decided signing Vermalean and Song for Barce would be a good idea?
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Well we do need a negotiator, he can start by negotiating some funds out of Kroenke.
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That train is 5 years too late.
I guess there was a cow on the tracks.
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Itās really hard to deny the hold he has on the club too at this point I feel like. Dein, Brady, Rowley, Law, Rice are all gone and Wenger (and Primorac) is still here.
We are delighted to announce that Raul Sanllehi is joining us as head of football relations.
Raul has been at Barcelona for the past 14 years. He will join us in February to lead future player negotiations and work alongside manager ArsĆØne Wenger, chief executive Ivan Gazidis and contract negotiator Huss Fahmy.
He will also represent and support the club with international and domestic governing bodies.The appointment follows the recent announcement of Sven Mislintat to head our player recruitment operations and Gazidis said: āIn the past three years we have supplemented our team with more top-class expertise across every aspect of our football operations.
"Raulās appointment is another important step in developing the infrastructure we need at the club to take everything we do to the next level. Raul has extensive contacts across the football world and has been directly involved in some of the biggest transfers in Europe in recent years. We look forward to him bringing that expertise to Arsenal.ā
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Wenger being squeezed out clearly, Looking like heāll have less say on transfer deal negotation and target identification.
Good on Ivan, these are positive changes with highly qualified individuals who are leaving great jobs to be at The Arsenal
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Iām not sure, I think these guys are brought in more to support him than squeeze him out, he said he was open to help last season.
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Agreed. If Wenger was fundamentally against these appointments I think he still has enough say to get them stopped. Heās not an idiot, he knows these people are pretty much at the top of their game and he will definitely see them as complimentary to what he is doing as opposed to being something counter productive.
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Reasonable assertion, part of me thinks if Wenger thought these changes were necessary he would have done something about it ages ago.
Fact that weāve finished 5th last season has compelled Ivan to act and affect change rather than Wenger coming to the realization that he needs help. Heās always been the man to maintain the status Quo and have the backroom staff total subservient to him.
Maybe squeeze out was a bit extreme but I donāt think Wenger will retain the same control over transfers he did before last season. Whether itās because weāre preparing for life after him him or making Transfer negotiation and scouting a more distinct operation independent from the manager.
Things like dithering, lack of transfer activity and poor understanding modern markets is something that has Wengerās indecisiveness all over it. Thereās a long and clear history of this
At the very least hopefully we can to eliminate some of those bad practices.
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Wenger will probably still get last say, canāt see us signing players without his āblessingā. And even if the backroom staff did purchase a player against Wengers wishes, heād just Lucas Perez them.
Yeah, I see this as them preparing for life without Wenger which although is joked about itās not far off, Wenger has always happy to go on as things are and if he hasnāt significantly shaken things up in years gone by then itās clear it isnāt him at the heart of these acquisitions.
The real shame is that we wonāt see the full effect of these additions until heās gone which will be for some time yet, well, if he has any say anyway.
Exactly.
I think the sort of people the club are in to sort out our transfer dealings and scouting are fine, but as long as Wenger is here we won 't see a massive shift in our transfer activity.
We do the bare minimum in the transfer market for a top level club, considering the money we have at our disposal, and some windows are unacceptable.
Whoever the new manager is after Wenger leaves, they are going to have a massive rebuilding job and the longer Wenger hangs around the more difficult that job is going to get.
I donāt think either of them would even come to the club if they thought they would be without autonomy.
So either Arsene is relinquishing some of the control to the backroom staff, or heās definitely not signing a new contract.
Itās more likely he has realised that at his age he probably needs others to help him do the work but I still think he will have the ultimate say in what the big decisions are on transfers.
He is just delegating some of the work to others who are good at it.
not a single transfer rumour. god damn it.
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Letās just hope Ćzil doesnāt pay attention to this news and unknowingly negotiates a contract with Arsenal instead of Barcelona 
About time. Hope all these moves are gonna force him out in the summer.
Wenger is going to be here next season regardless of these appointments. And in the summer of 2019 Kroenke nor Gazidis will have any reason to give him another extension.
Replacing Rowley and Law was bound too happen sooner rather than later. Rowley is 58 and I imagine Law isnāt much younger.
Hope not FFS! Does he want to die here? 
How about this; the legal side of contracts were taking far too long, often leaving arsenal with players with 1 year remaining or transfers taking to long because not enough staff or influential people to push them over the line.
The fact these addition were needed when we moved to the emirates, to be frank I am surprised it took this long. To move arsenal forward we need the best minds in scouting, legal and commercial. In my opinion this is far from squeezing wenger out.
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