Arsenal: Well, they weren’t lying, change is gonna come

Arsene Wenger is no longer Arsenal manager. That hinted at some major changes at the club. Well, judging by the backroom staff decisions, they weren’t lying. A change is gonna come.

It was always going to be the end of an era. Arsene Wenger had been the king for 22 years. You do not usurp the king without change. And so it seems. As Arsenal begin to make plans for the post-Wenger period, as the Sam Cooke song goes, ‘a change is gonna come’.

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Obviously, there is the change of the manager, although, as of writing, the appointment for Wenger’s successor has not yet been announced. Irrespective of that, however, there will be a new direction for this team. Whoever the new manager is, they will not act in the same way that Wenger has for two decades.

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That is clearly the most significant and broadest-stroking change. It is the highest-profile position that has the most power and control at the club. But the changes are not going to end there, if the recent news has anything to say.

Colin Lewin, the club physio and cousin of former Arsenal and England physio Gary Lewin, who has been in north London for 23 years, has been let go, Vic Akers, an everpresent figure at the club who founded the women’s team in 1987 and then managed them up until 2009, winning every possible silverware that there is to win, and the likes of Boro Primorac, Neil Banfield and Gerry Payton, all of whom have played key roles throughout Wenger’s tenure for many, many years.

The decisions are the workings of Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis.

This is now his club, and alongside Head of Recruitment, Sven Mislintat, and Head of Relations, Raul Sanllehi, the Gunners are being moulded into a new image, an image defined by this experienced and intelligent brain trust.

Will it work? I have absolutely no idea. It would be utterly naive to suggest that it will or will not work at such an infant stage in the project. They don’t even have a manager for God’s sake. The decisions that they are making will need time to work themselves out and have an impact on the club.

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For now, though, one thing is abundantly clear: We are entering a new era of Arsenal football club. The time of Arsene Wenger is no more. The time of Ivan Gazidis is here. A change is gonna come, and it’s going to be very weird indeed.