Arsenal Part Ways with Sven Mislintat

After days of rumours, Arsenal have announced the exit of their Chief Scout Sven Mislintat, effective from 8 February’19

The Great Arsenal backroom shakeup continues further, with another one of their top level decision makers deciding to leave the club. Mislintat had joined the club on 1 December’17 as a part of their initial plan to change the backroom staff. Known by many as the ‘Eagle Eye’, Mislintat came in with a burgeoning reputation from Borussia Dortmund having spotted the likes of Shinji Kagawa, Robert Lewandowski, Ousmane Dembele, probably being one of his best catch for the German club.

After joining Arsenal, Mislintat used his contacts at Dortmund to bring an unsettled Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, who Arsenal would have been most thankful for. He then also helped bring Henrik Mkhitaryan from Manchester United, in an exchange deal for Alexis Sanchez. During his period, the club saw many experienced players like Papasthapulos and Lichstenier come in, who were mainly brought in to help the club fight their way through the Europa league and claw their way back into the Champions League.

While the former Dortmund players have been good additions to the team, Mislintat was mainly brought in to help the club build their self-sustaining model which is essentially buy low-sell high. His main job – pick young talent from relative obscurity, who could later be sold for big money.

This is necessary because Arsenal don’t have the spending power to match the free spending Manchester clubs, despite the fact it is widely believed Arsenal have enough cash reserves to put them in the top 10 richest clubs in the world list. Sven got hold of Matteo Guendouzi, Konstaninos Mavropanos and most impressively, Lucas Torreira, who has gone on to be a major hit at the club.

The jury is still out with the other two additions, but one could afford to give them time, given the range of their jumps to the Premier League. Looking back at Mislintat’s signings, only Torreira and Aubameyang can be considered as the more successful acquisitions, while the rest have been too inconsistent to define them as a flop or a success.

It is rumoured that there has been serious communication breakdown between Mislintat and the rest of the team, especially with the manager and Head of Football, Raul Sanllehi, with regards to differences in recruitment strategy. With Mislintat’s departure, the backroom staff at the club has undergone a proper overall from what it was almost a year back.

This has sparked rounds for the replacement of the to-be-vacant position as Arsenal’s Chief Scout, with former Arsenal players Edu and Marc Overmars, being named in the initial set of rumours. Frannie Cagigao, one of Arsenal’s oldest scouts, who was instrumental in bringing Cesc Fabregas to the club is also being considered for the position. There will obviously be no shortage of suitors for Mislintat, with Bayern Munich, according to reports leading the line to bring him back to Germany use his services to dethrone surprise leaders and his former employers, Borussia Dortmund.