Arsenal: It may not be his place, but Ivan Gazidis is right
Ivan Gazidis reportedly told new Arsenal head coach Unai Emery that he needed to sign leaders in the dressing room. It might not be his place, but he’s not wrong.
As soon as Arsene Wenger resigned from his 22-year post as Arsenal manager, it was clear that this would be a summer of change. He was the be-all-and-end-all. He had power and influence in every nook and cranny of the club. Nothing was decided that he had not had his say on. Just be his absence, things would be different.
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But by the decision, a decision that I believe was forced by the club, there was an admission that something wasn’t working, or a few things were combining for the whole thing to not work. Those things would incur change. Ivan Gazidis, the man who is now in charge at the club, would be sure of it.
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And one of the things that he has reportedly demanded change is the mental make-up of the squad. Gazidis, per reports in the media, told Unai Emery, when he was hired as Head Coach to succeed Wenger, that he must look to add leaders to the dressing room, an issue that has been highlighted ever since the departure of Patrick Vieira in 2005.
Gazidis saw the continual folding and melting of the players as an indictment that they lacked the characters to lead them forward, to challenge one another when it was necessary, and to lead from the front. Wenger was often a passive figure in the dressing room. It was how he worked. But without an active, loud, commanding playing figure to take up that leading role, Gazidis saw the team slump into a group of pushovers.
Now, I am not sure that it is Gazidis’ place to tell Emery what kind of players he should look to recruit, especially the character and personality traits of those players. Sven Mislintat is the Head of Recruitment, Emery is the Head Coach. While I do not know where the boundaries of power lie, I do not believe that Gazidis should have the right to tell Emery who to sign.
I also do not know if the report is true. It is extremely vague with a lot of modifiers used to play down the significance of it. But judging by the transfer business that has been done thus far, it is clear that one of the changes that Arsenal wanted to impart was the introduction of leading characters in the dressing room.
And another thing that should be recognised is that Gazidis is right. Even if it isn’t his place to dictate to Emery — and it might be, it is just my opinion that it shouldn’t be –, what he demands of the Spaniard, if he did indeed demand it, is absolutely necessary. Arsenal have needed leaders for over a decade.
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It seems as though Gazidis recognised that need. It seems as though Emery agreed with him, and Sven Mislintat too. Let’s hope, then, that in the business that they have done, they have solved one of the most crippling problems of the last decade.