Arsenal have signed Ben Wrigglesworth who is our head of scouting. ****ers They also tried and failed thank god to sign Steve Walsh
..Walshy apparently has a £1 million release clause in his contract..and is also reportedly 'more than happy' where he is
Shame to lose any of our highly-rated recruitment team but even the Gonners are sitting up and taking notice of us now.
Well its way easier to be Wengers chief scout, he doesn't buy anyone! My guess would be after trying to get Walsh, they moved onto Wriggly. Expect us to be going for the same targets now and losing
Disappointing that he has left a club that he helped to get to the verge of something special and then not seen it through. I'm sure there are others out there if we need them. Probably more important that we keep Steve Walsh.
I wonder if success of a football club really filters down to the staff in the same way it will affect the players/fans/owners. I guess that for some behind the scenes, its more about their income than their achievements.
I think some may argue that scouting for Arsenal rather than Leicester is in itself an achievement. Thanks for Mahrez Ben, enjoy your bedsit in North London.
For a second there I thought you meant Walsh - he would be the big loss. Still that is a second London club to ave pinched our Head of Technical Scouting - first was Tottenham at the beginning of the season but we survived that well. That is not to say that Ben isn't a big loss - is only in his early 20s and would have eventually risen to Walsh's level.
What a load of nonsense. Arsenal are a club that over the last 20 years are known for unearthing great players and have some very respected scouts. What's the problem with offering someone a step up in there career? And where do you expect the bigger clubs to recruit new scouts from?
I haven't a problem , would have done if you'd of got Walsh, he's the jewel that is older & wiser who can recruit top scouts as good as he can players... Been there seen it done it... Not some 20 year old who has just got his NVQ in scouting
I'll give Arsenal credit, at least they don't splash the cash to the level other bit clubs do, which is why you'd be my second choice to be champions (assuming miracles don't happen for Leicester). It's just a general frustration of being a 'smaller club' with the likes of Chelsea and Man City sniffing around Vardy and Mahrez. Sometimes you just think f***ing find these guys yourselves. Then again the flip side is that like Chelsea, they horde players and ruin young careers. It's a no win tbh, I guess money talks
I expected you to develop new scouts in house but then again you do need an overhaul to your scouting system as you were known for finding gems like Henry and Fabergas but haven't really in the past few seasons - lad is in his 20s so could be with you for decades so is a good move on your part. Oh well - good luck to him, time to find our 3rd head of technical scouting in 6 months...
It's a credit to our club that clubs like Arsenal want our scouting personnel and that our players are subject to rumours of 30 mill bids. This month will be very telling for all clubs of our size IMO (of which there are loads) as if we can't keep everyone being top, what hope is there, we can't have done any more (a couple of missed pens aside). For the sake of the game, I hope we aren't forced to sell
We wont be forced as or finances are in good shape but unfortunately one of the reasons is because we have kept to a rigid wage structure - if someone offers you 3 times your salary, your head will be turned. At least we can keep Ben on gardening leave until the transfer window is closed.
Like in any business some staff will have been trained up by the company and promoted from within and others will come in from other businesses. You can't expect every club to develop all there own scouts and I'd imagine you end up with a pretty narrow scouting network without the eclectic mix of scouts from different football styles, different parts of the world, different clubs, different views on the game etc... As for our scouting network in recent seasons, we've gone more for established stars, can't say I'm dissapointed with Ozil, Sanchez and Cech Though we haven't gone as much for the lesser known players in recent years. I'm interested to see how El Neny does. In the few years prior to us reaching a more affluent financial position (which started really with the signing of Ozil) we signed players like Cazorla, Giroud, Koscielny who were all fairly unknown in England but have turned into key players for us. There's been a handful of mistakes in there too like with any club but we have consistently found gems. Hopefully this new guy comes in and adds something to our scouting department and I'm sure he will learn a lot working with the scouts at Arsenal. Your lot seem to rate him so it sounds like good news for us
Yeah when I say forced I'm thinking players heads being turned. Obviously West Brom and Everton showed if can be done, Everton it's worked well for, West Brom not so much. Hopefully this isn't the reason behind Mahrez's drop in form......could be a master plan for Mahrez and Vardy, play under the radar in Jan lads then smash it from Feb onwards!
I think you hit the nail on the head. You've made some cracking signings but a lot of them are well known. What you'll get from our lad is unknown gems which is what we do
It's the same bloke who scouted Mahrez and Kante isn't it ? To be fair Arsenal have done really well over the years scouting top talent and bringing them on at the top level. It's clubs like Chelsea and City who skewed the whole market out of shape with their obscene spending and snapped up young players only to let them either rot in the reserves or loan them out to Championship sides. I think Leicester will be okay in terms of hanging onto their best players, certainly from a financial perspective anyway. Your owners have no need to sell for £30m and that is a massive bonus for a club like Leicester, because most neutrals want to see you build on this season and be up with the top4/6 every season.
He will fit in well with the ethos and culture at Arsenal then with Wenger loving to find an unknown player at a bargain price! It'll be interesting to see if both clubs are in for any of the same targets in the summer!
