I don’t actually blame Gazidis for trying something different to help us in the market though. He made a mess of it in the end because he isn’t a football man, but he clearly saw that the writing was on the wall with Wenger’s slow decision making and poor signings, and he felt he had to intervene.
I know a lot of people have many reservations about Ivan but I actually think he did a pretty decent job during the transition out of the Wenger era. He seemed to be the only one with his head screwed on right in 2017 when he was pushing for Wenger to go behind the scenes, and he was pulling the strings from that point on to make it happen. He slightly pissed it all away by not seeing the full transition through when he left, but I do think he did a decent job in that period.
Using all available data is smart. Trying to find every possible tiny advantage is smart. These tools can and should be useful, but football is one of those activities that mostly is about non-stat activities. Ie, any player is without ball about 95% of game at least… and things like positioning and risk taking are just tragically poorly assessed.
Problem isn’t stats per se but unsophisticated use or misuse of them. Having said that, I don’t believe there is any such thing as a “stats DNA signing”. Any signing would still have involved extensive scouting. Tools like that are for priorization of scouting only.
Don’t think Wenger wanted Mustafi or Perez but he called Xhaka to convince him the season before he signed him. And Xhaka had big potential with his physical game, range of passing and his long shots.
That has to be the strangest signing we made while Wenger was manager.
It was our record signing for us for a striker and he actually played well when Wenger picked him but the fact that Wenger rarely played him, despite some decent performances, would indicate he wasn’t a player that he liked.
The window when we signed Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez was bizarre.
We spent more money in that window than we had ever done before, and wasted nearly all of it.
So if it was Wenger or Gazidis that was responsible for those signings, at least both are now out of the club.
Perez definitely wasn’t his signing. I remember him playing well in the cup for us and after Wenger knocked him in the interview after the game for being ‘too one footed’.
You can question how large a role analytics played in certain signings but what you can question is the fact that Wenger had total control over first team matters which includes all signings
It was done as a fall back for Vardy snub. Considering it was done on deadline day, I doubt Wenger was ever keen and just said yes as there was no other options.
“Sorry, no. I’m not prepared to talk about that. I’m the manager of Arsenal football club and, as long as I’m manager of Arsenal football club, I will decide what happens on the technical front. That’s it.”
For the most part, yes. Certainly didn’t look like it the past years. Wenger and Gazidis seemed to be on a different page. There was definitely a fallout at some point and an evident transition to the coach-director model which Wenger and I suppose an overwhelming percentage of managers out there atm are not keen on.
