Arsenal: The lowdown on new head of recruitment, Sven Mislintat

On Monday, Arsenal announced the hiring of Sven Mislintat as their new head of recruitment. Here is all you need to know about the former Borussia Dortmund scout.

Arsenal are, behind the scenes, making moves. While Arsene Wenger wades on, powering through a mire of increasing criticism and questioning, the club are beginning to build for the post-Wenger era, one that, if Manchester United are anything to go by, will not be calm whatsoever.

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There were contrasting reports involving Marc Overmars and a role as director of football, Per Mertesacker has already agreed to stay with the club as Head of the Academy once he retires at the end of the season, while there have been increasing rumours that Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis wants to build a more supportive infrastructure around Wenger, both for him and for his successor.

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The latest recruit, however, could be the most influential and the most important. On Monday, it was announced that Arsenal had agreed to terms with Sven Mislintat of Borussia Dortmund, hiring him as their new Head of Recruitment, taking over from Steve Rowley, who is duly stepping down from the role. But, let’s be honest here, no one really knows much about Mislintat. I barely know all of the personnel people at Arsenal, nevermind other clubs. So, I did a bit of googling to see what I could find…

Firstly, Mislintat is an extremely well-regarded talent evaluator. Bayern Munich, in fact, attempted to prise him away from their German rivals on a number of occasions. As Mislintat himself revealed, the first major development in his scouting career was Shinji Kagawa, admitting in a 2012 interview: ‘The key player for my career as a scout was Shinki Kagawa.’

He was the one who pushed Dortmund to sign a 21-year-old, second-tier Japanese player who had no experience of European profile and absolutely no profile whatsoever. Two years later, he was sold to Manchester United for over £10 million profit.

Mislintat has also been heavily accredited with the assembly of much of Jurgen Klopp’s great Dortmund squad. Robert Lewandowski, Neven Subotic, Mats Hummels and Sven Bender have all been named as signings that Mislintat was essential in securing.

He was also a key player in securing Ousmane Dembele and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from the French league, and although they were more clear-cut signings with a fairly obvious talent that other clubs had also highlighted, it was Mislintat that got the deal done.

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The German has been nicknamed ‘Diamond Eye’ because of his ability to spot ability. Only time will tell if he is indeed able to unearth any diamonds while at Arsenal. But he comes with a sublime reputation, one that has been earned over a long and distinguished career. Keep a keen eye on who is in and out of the Emirates in the coming years.