Lauren, Aubameyang, Cazorla, Mata, Griezmann, Monreal, Azpilicueta, Saliba, Pique and Messi.
Cagigao seems decent at his job tbf.
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Arsenal give with one hand and take with the other
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Lmao u think those are the only 3 guys heās brought in or advised upon just cuz it mentioned them in the headline of the article? He was our scout in Spain in the earlier years when we had our scouting network set up a certain way and he brought us Santi Cazorla, Alexis, and was the main guy who identified Messi for us to buy when he was 15.
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Say what you like about Wenger but agents NEVER talked so brazenly about the club like this. Weāre being gamed, it feels like Kia is taking clear advantage of both Raul and Edu for his own benefit
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Itās very concerning whatās going on thats for sure and itās been apparent shit was going down like this since we signed all these guys to extensions. Some understandably others were a bit head scratching. Still tho I think itās a bit early to tell if the new direction we are headed in is going to help or hinder us. The outrage is a bit much at this stage.
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When we were told of his āextensive list of contacsā itās more apt to say he knows a plethora of shark agents that may take advantage of him but make him feel like heās calling all the shots.
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I donāt think any scout on earth should be given credit for unearthing someone whoās basically known to any and every single person involved in football recruitment.
Itās farcical when scouts are given credit for someone like Santi Cazorla, who had long been linked with Real Madrid before we signed him and took advantage of the Malaga decline.
And Messi was basically the hottest thing in football. He had Capello begging Barcelona for a loan when he was like 17, what kind of scout gets credit for that?
I can almost certainly get behind a scout who unearths a gem. But Iām not having a scout being given credit for Santi Cazorla lol
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Ultimately if we end up with
Coutinho
Willian
Pepe
Luiz
Saliba
Ceballos
Soares
Mari
Over 2 seasons Raulās done good business, the best in a long time. If we manage to add Gabriel and/or Partey too, then heās putting in an incredible rebuild
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It could very well work using this closed circle of contacts and clients, potentially puts us at the head of the queue for some top talents, and it only takes a couple of big wins to potentially have a huge impact on our clubs fortunes.
The worrying thing is weāve spent and invested for decades to try and build a foundation of knowledge and expertise which regardless as to whose the boss or the direction we choose to go in would still be there to offer guidance, information, analysis etcetc. The fear is that has been stripped out of our club not just with the loss of cagigao but also what sounds like almost the entire team with the 55 redundancies.
Raul could leave in a couple years and our links evaporate and weād be left with nothing but an entire rebuild of our scouting network again.
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I just think people read into these things a bit too much sometimes. At the end of the day our club has been in disarray with its recruitment for so long that for the first time in a while I can actually see a plan being executed here. Weāve made some very astute signings, and it looks like this summer might be similar to last year in that we address our issues.
I can understand why people are hesitant to want to get behind this approach because it doesnāt look great on the surface being in bed with super agents like Kia.
But the reality is the biggest players in the world and even the biggest young talents are all being represented by super agents these days. And the contact book approach gives us access to a lot of these players weād otherwise struggle to get involved with.
Our recruitment has been a shambles for a very long time now and this is the first time in a long time Iām seeing a cohesive approach to player recruitment. We identify weaknesses and we address them and Iād honestly say that the current team havenāt got a lot wrong. By and large, they made some very good signings the summer just gone and I have faith weāll have another good summer.
If our current approach is what it takes for us to keep doing this then by all means Iām all for it. I lost faith in our scouting a long time ago when I kept reading stories about how we passed over great talent or how we lost out on great talent because of agent fees and our disagreements with transfer fees and wages.
Iām willing to be patient with Edu and Raul so long as they keep delivering us the right profile of players. By all accounts, Arteta seems to be the one who personally requested the signing of Willian and personally requested the Luiz extension. The manager is being backed and heās being backed with players that he wants to sign.
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My bad mate. Thought it was that when we signed him from Malaga and I thought it was farcical to give him credit for signing an established Spanish international.
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Itās being made out that our entire scouting structure is being disbanded.
On its own, I wouldnāt be too concerned about that. Our recruitment has been average (and thatās being generous) over the past 5 years in particular. Thereās been a lot of players that have gone to our rivals that we should have been all over.
However, the worry as Arseblog has tweeted, is that we are going to exclusively buy players from Kiaās harem (and other super agents). I donāt like that at all. That isnāt how you build squads to compete. You might get a few quality players using this approach (because the super agents usually have the best talents on their books) but footballistically itās not the way things ought to be done.
Letās see if any of these guys are replaced.
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The thing is I could look at whoscored and told you Mata and Cazorla were the best creators in La Liga not at a top club. When those players get to that level theyāre obviously the next big thing
Yeah agreeā¦ are we seriously calling into question our scouting approach based on some report of an AGENT? AN AGENT?
Leaving aside the hilarious juxtaposition of a very mixed and sometimes shambolic set of transfers since just after the Invincible reallyā¦
We donāt really need some stupid agent (wtf does he know, he has a massive agenda) to tell us what we already knowā¦ and specifics like āthere are those in the corridors of blah blah blah that call into question the increasing concentration among a fewā¦ā
I mean seriously? Someone has to call the shots in the end and AFC still has a pretty big scouting networkā¦ with new leadership, they are going to probably rely more on their individual knowledge and contacts until they get fully comfortable with the staff, infrastructure, and geo set-up scouting-wiseā¦
Personally Iād like to see us shade towards younger, more long-term assets (like what Chelsea is doing this summer), but you have to be flexible.
I think Iāll judge things on their merits before and after signings rather than listen to the nonsense chatter of super-agents.
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This club is clearly not going anywhere.
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Yeahā¦ its a good thing if a part of our org sucksā¦ you change itā¦ we complained about Kroenke and co taking too long with Arsene (he did)ā¦ letās not get all fussed about a potential shake-up in an area we have been mediocre at best.
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part of scouting is unearthing players before others do and the other is putting pieces in place of known quantities for the right money, right timing, and right fit, etcā¦
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But we havenāt been doing that in ages anyway. At least not much. The scouts have obviously got it wrong with a defender and midfielder recruitment recently.
Right well fuck this club.
Thatās it. Unquestionably horrible decision.
Fatty pig Raul looting this club. Bald cunt Gazidis really did leave us with one last turd before he fucked off that gargantuan CUNT, making this guy the default head.
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