• ! ! ! IMPORTANT MESSAGE ! ! !

    Discussions about police investigations

    In light of recent developments about a player from Premier League being arrested and until there is an official announcement, ALL users should refrain from discussing or speculating about situations around personal off-pitch matters related to any Arsenal player. This is to protect you and the forum.

    Users who disregard this reminder will be issued warnings and their posts will get deleted from public.

Would you take Ivan Gazidis back?

Would you prefer Ivan or Raúl?


  • Total voters
    63

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
ivan_1.jpg


Some of us may have mocked him (not me) but he seems to have learned his lesson and is making sure the personnel at Milan is correct and trying to lay a foundation to take the club forwards.

He’s kept Pioli after their results improved and Maldini will be staying on at the club after all. He’s still clearing house as they’ve just let go their communications director who was a hire from the Chinese ownership.

Is it the case that we totally misjudged him, maybe he never had the power to compel Arsène to fire all the dud staff we had around the club?

Once things began to change in 2017 a lot of turnover in fitness and coaching began. Some of it had been positive, our goalkeepers have never looked better.

The hires he did make seemed to be progressive. Sven, Darren Burgess and promoting Cagigao showed he was doing the opposite to what Raúl is doing now and setting up a group of experts to delegate to.

Raúl I’m guessing was brought in with a mandate of using his vast contact book to get the jump on players. We give him a lot of sh*t but he managed to pull off a deal for Pepe which was very complicated as well as seemingly Gabriel and also the legendary Neymar deal where he managed to get the inside track with both Santos and the player himself.

Nicolas-Pepe-1.jpg


The way I see it is that Sven was meant to provide the targets using analytics and traditional scouting with Cagigao and Raúl was supposed to spearhead a contact driven recruitment so you’d have two different styles working under Gazidis to cast a wide a net as possible.

The problem is that without Gazidis at the top of the pyramid it became a straight power battle and unsurprisingly legendary negotiator Raúl won KSE over whilst the notoriously difficult Sven lost any power he had.

Football transfers are notoriously complicated and it’s unrealistic to close yourself off from super agents and expect to have a shot at getting the best players.

You can look at Utd where Ed Woodward seems to be unable to get deals across the line unless he caves and pays way over the odds. He’s been taken to the cleaners in recent years.

7-BEB5-FA3-6691-4-B17-9-DCD-0-EDB0172-E083.jpg


The jury is out on whether agent led recruitment is in fact a way to reinvent the wheel when it comes to transfer policy. Results at Wolves have been positive for example but it’s very early days for them.

There are clear positives to it and we might well be able to succeed but at the end of the day I’m a fan of Arsenal the football club. I don’t want to see our name get dragged through the mud into the nether regions of football morality.
 
Last edited:

Flying Okapis

Most Well-Known Member
ivan_1.jpg


Some of us may have mocked him (not me) but he seems to have learned his lesson and is making sure the personnel at Milan is correct and trying to lay a foundation to take the club forwards.

He’s kept Pioli after their results improved and Maldini will be staying on at the club after all. He’s still clearing house as they’ve just let go their communications director who was a hire from the Chinese ownership.

Is it the case that we totally misjudged him, maybe he never had the power to compel Arsène to fire all the dud staff we had around the club.

Once things began to change in 2017 a lot of turnover in fitness and coaching began. Some of it had been positive, our goalkeepers have never looked better.

The hires he did make seemed to be progressive. Sven, Darren Burgess and promoting Cagigao showed he was doing the opposite to what Raúl is doing now and setting up a group of experts to delegate to.

Raúl I’m guessing was brought in with a mandate of using his vast contact book to get the jump on players. We give him a lot of sh*t but he managed to pull off a deal for Pepe which was very complicated as well as seemingly Gabriel and also the legendary Neymar deal where he managed to get the inside track with both Santos and the player himself.

Nicolas-Pepe-1.jpg


The way I see it is that Sven was meant to provide the targets using analytics and traditional scouting with Cagigao and Raúl was supposed to spearhead a contact driven recruitment so you’d have two different styles working under Gazidis to cast a wide a net as possible.

The problem is that without Gazidis at the top of the pyramid it became a straight power battle and unsurprisingly legendary negotiator Raúl won KSE over whilst the notoriously difficult Sven lost any power he had.

Football transfers are notoriously complicated and it’s unrealistic to close yourself off from super agents and expect to have a shot at getting the best players.

You can look at Utd where Ed Woodward seems to be unable to get deals across the line unless he caves and pays way over the odds.

7-BEB5-FA3-6691-4-B17-9-DCD-0-EDB0172-E083.jpg


The jury is out on whether agent led recruitment is in fact a way to reinvent the wheel when it comes to transfer policy. Results at Wolves have been positive for example but it’s very early days for them.

There are clear positives to it and we might well be able to succeed but at the end of the day I’m a fan of Arsenal the football club. I don’t want to see our name get dragged through the mud into the nether regions of football morality.

God no, it wasnt just the transfers or power with Gazidis/Wenger it was the stupid contract situations which does it for me, constant over the years.

Actually dont mind how we are being run right now, its not perfect but its early days and we seem to be heading in the right direction.
 

say yes

forum master baiter
Voted Raul without a shadow of a doubt.

Only good thing Ivan ever did at this club was when he orchestrated the sacking of Mr Wenger. And even then he was about 3 years late. He was an incompetent halfwit.

Raul might be a bit dodgy, but at least he manages to get things done. Ivan was the footballing equivalent of Jay from the inbetweeners. Constantly talking about signing the top players then coming back from France with Yaya Sanogo.
 

RacingPhoton

Established Member
I understand the hatred towards Raul. I don't like the way he is managing things. At the same time, I would never go back to Ivan. We can keep debating on whether it was Wenger or Ivan who was responsible for stupid contract extensions. But which idiot would sell a top scoring Van Persie to a title rival for ****ing 22.5M? There is not way you can point fingers at anyone else. Look at how many contracts he dragged until the last year. Ivan is bad at this job in his own way.

Quite happy if we replace Raul. But no way back to Ivan. He is one of the main reasons why Arsenal is languishing at the bottom.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
Didn’t read your post but I voted Raul without a shadow of a doubt.

Only good thing Ivan ever did at this club was when he orchestrated the sacking of Mr Wenger. And even then he was about 3 years late. He was an incompetent halfwit.

Raul might be a bit dodgy, but at least he manages to get things done. Ivan was the footballing equivalent of Jay from the inbetweeners. Constantly talking about signing the top players then coming back from France with Yaya Sanogo.

How much power did he really have towards the end of the Wenger era? I feel like it was just him and Wenger aided by StatDNA and scouts in charge of recruitment which is no way to run a football club in the modern game.

Wenger clearly hated the idea of a director of football and seemed to fight tooth and nail in relinquishing control of his many duties.

Once the axe came down on Wenger he seems to have planned take to take a backseat and leave the work up to more qualified people both here and Milan.

Sacking scouts and focusing the club solely on agents might work out but it’s very dangerous ground.
 

Garrincha

Wilf Zaha Aficionado
Trusted ⭐
Not Ivan but he should have been replaced. The entire structure was set out pretty well until the exits & over-promoting all these people months into the job.

Raul should be doing his dirty **** in the shadows.
 

A_G

Rice Rice Baby 🎼🎵
A-M CL Draft Campeón 🏆
:lol: last poster on here I'd expect to ask this question
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
Not Ivan but he should have been replaced. The entire structure was set out pretty well until the exits & over-promoting all these people months into the job.

Raul should be doing his dirty **** in the shadows.

That’s the point I’m making. The structure under Gazidis those first few months of 2018/19 looked really promising.

Then as soon as he left you had Sven cut out of the picture entirely and resigning in protest over Denis Suarez.

Im not saying I rate Gazidis per se. However by all accounts it was a total clown show at Arsenal the last few years of Arsène’s reign.

There was no clear structure to footballing operations and you had chancers like **** Law, Grimandi, Primorac and Gerry Peyton who we couldn’t fire.

I’ve actually been really impressed with the work he’s done at Milan so far. If he’d have been given the power he has in Italy here would things have been different?
 

say yes

forum master baiter
How much power did he really have towards the end of the Wenger era? I feel like it was just him and Wenger aided by StatDNA and scouts in charge of recruitment which is no way to run a football club in the modern game.

Wenger clearly hated the idea of a director of football and seemed to fight tooth and nail in relinquishing control of his many duties.

Once the axe came down on Wenger he seems to have planned take to take a backseat and leave the work up to more qualified people both here and Milan.

Sacking scouts and focusing the club solely on agents might work out but it’s very dangerous ground.
Read your post now and it’s actually an interesting take, but I’d still stick with Raul.

Recent noises from the club have sounded very dodgy, and I certainly prefer the sound of an analytics based approach to an agents led approach.

But, and it’s a big but, this is a result’s industry and for all his good talk, Ivan constantly failed to deliver. In contrast, Raul’s approach in the transfer market sounds dodgy as ****, but you can’t deny he is getting results (and then some). I’m actually enjoying transfer rumours again ffs. I mean, we’re a Europa league club, and I’m confident we’re actually going to get guys like Partey and Gabriel. Ivan could only dream of those kinda results.
 

Moleque

Active Member
Intriguing question. He's doing a great job at Milan, but did a really ****ty job here. Looks like he's learned from his mistakes, just sucks that he used Arsenal to get all his mistakes out of his system.
 

Yousif Arsenal

On Vinai's payroll & misses 4th place trophy 🏆
Trusted ⭐
Ivan couldn't make everything done he was bad at transfers bad at contract negotiations he got no clue how football works he kept doing what wenger told him to do and he hide behind Wenger all the time he is here.

as much people hate Raul and Edu and their dodgy deals with agent but they knows how to get things done.
 

Lidl_Reed

Wants a new name
God, I miss Ivan. Great man who worked hard to pleasure us fans with his stamina and lengthy work
 

kraphtous

Raul Stanllehi
Boring answer would be neither. I mean Gazidis brought Raul here, who has brought the club to ruin in two years. Who do you blame, the guy who brought the problems here or the guy who did them?
 
Top Bottom