Arsenal’s sporting director Edu has opened up about the “unpopular decisions” he and manager Mikel Arteta have had to make to transform the Gunners into Premier League title challengers.
Edu and Arteta both played for Arsenal before returning in 2019 and the pair have spearheaded a major overhaul of the way the club operates, with ageing, big name players on huge contracts shipped out in favour of “younger players, on lower salaries, with better futures, who are hungry to take us where we want to go”.
In an appearance on the Men in Blazers podcast, Edu said of the transformation: “When you live in the football world, sometimes you have to make decisions simple and sometimes you have to make decisions even if it is not popular. You have to be very strong on your ideas, what you believe, what is good for the club, what is good for the future of the club.
“For me, there are some elements in football which I will always give a lot of attention. When I joined, I looked at the squad balance, the positions, the age of the group. There are three elements that you have to be really aware of. First of all, we have to see the age of the player.
“Then you have to see the salary of the player. And third you have to see the performance of the player. If you have a player over 26 or 27 years, you need attention. If his salary is high, you need attention. And if he is not performing, you are dead.
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