Arsenal: Sven Mislintat targets with no Sven Mislintat is comically poor

Arsenal are reportedly set to sign young goalkeeper Markus Schubert, who was a key target of Sven Mislintat. Cashing Mislintat targets with Mislintat no longer there illustrates the comically poor mismanagement of the club.

You would be forgiven for forgetting that Arsenal are a professional football club sometimes, one of the most accomplished sporting organisations, steeped in history and pedigree, inexorably successful, a global brand of massive proportions. For such an esteemed and revered club, they rarely act like one.

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And this week, we have seen the latest screw up in a long list of managerial mishaps that lead to question if anyone even knows how to kick a football never mind run a football club.

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According to a report in the Independent, Arsenal are set to sign young German goalkeeper Markus Schubert on a free transfer. He is viewed as a terrific young talent, an individual who can grow and develop under Bernd Leno and one day challenge his compatriot for the starting role at the Emirates. If he loses that battle, the Gunners can then sell him on for what is assumed to be a rather sizable profit seeing as he is set to arrive on a free transfer.

A young player — he turned 21 on Wednesday — with a bucket load of potential for nothing but a signing-on fee and wages. Smart business. That all seems rather sensible. And that is because it is sensible. Although some would question the value of the position with Emiliano Martinez already present and developing and Leno the presumed starter, the business acumen of the move is high. But the move is not one that the club was going to make.

Schubert was a key priority of Sven Mislintat. Mislintat is a world-renowned scout who was hired by Ivan Gazidis as the head of recruitment at the Emirates, one of the key figures to lead the Arsene Wenger transition. He was critical to last summer’s business, a keen supporter for the signings of Lucas Torreira, Leno and Sokratis, and was meant to revolutionise Arsenal’s recruitment process. But then, within a year of his arrival, he left.

Mislintat’s departure is a little murky. No one really knows why. Nevertheless, it is thought that he was struggling to work with head of football Raul Sanllehi and head coach Unai Emery, was frustrated by his lack of involvement in the hiring of Wenger’s replacement, which turned out to be Emery, and felt his influence in the transfer market was marginalised. Essentially, this was a struggle for power, one that Sanllehi won.

And now, with Mislintat out the door and Sanllehi the unquestioned figure in charge, Arsenal are using the targets of the former under the management of the present. I mean, come on. I cannot even begin to describe how comically poor that is. That a man who is world renowned in his field is allowed to leave the club and then you use his work anyway, an admission that he is better than you at the job, is utterly laughable.

It is as if Sanllehi, Emery and the club have borrowed their mate’s work for the mock test, aced it, but now got to the real thing and realised that they themselves cannot do it so they are going back to what their mate did. Yes, you would indeed be forgiven for forgetting that Arsenal are a professional football club.