Arsenal managing director Vinai Venkatesham has revealed that the club is impatient for success as they look to immediately compete for the biggest trophies again, per the club’s official website.
Venkatesham has been an employee of the North London club since 2010 and has been employed
in various roles over the years. He took on the role of managing director when Ivan Gazidis
left for AC Milan in 2018.
“We know we’re not where we want to be and we are impatient, because we want to get to where we want to be, as quickly as we possibly can,” he said.
“Our objectives are to be back competing for and winning the biggest trophies in the game and if you’re Arsenal Football Club and if you’re in the Premier League, there’s two trophies that really matter and that’s the Premier League trophy and the Champions League trophy.
“That has to be the objectives of a football club like Arsenal. It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to be straightforward, there’s a whole load of competition but that has to be the objective for this football club.”
He thanked the outgoing Raul Sanllehi, who left his position as the Director of Football on Saturday.
The departure of Sanllehi has been done in an effort to streamline the organisational structure at the Emirates with Edu and Mikel Arteta now overseeing the club’s transfer strategy. Venkatesham also spoke about the challenges of operating in a transfer market that has been affected by the Coronavirus.
“We have, in Edu and Mikel, two individuals who are responsible for our technical plan. Of course, [that is] overseen by me and the board, but those two are the experts and they have a very, very clear plan about how they want to rebalance our squad in the short term, in the medium term and in the long term. We’re starting to work on that immediately in this transfer window.”
I think it’s going to be a challenging transfer window post-coronavirus, it’s going to be unusual and it’s going to be challenging, but we’ll continue to work hard to deliver on our objectives to strengthen the squad and Edu and Mikel have a really clear plan around how they’d like to do that.”
It was a disappointing season for Arsenal that saw them finish eighth in the Premier League. However, they ended it on a high with a win over Chelsea in the FA Cup final. The club started the season in a poor fashion which ultimately lead to Unai Emery’s sacking, and Mikel Arteta taking over. The North London club have managed to turn things around to a certain extent with both a trophy and European football for next season.
Fans will be hoping that the club can get back to the top four sooner than later. Arsenal have already made their first move of the transfer window with the signing of Brazilian midfielder Willian on a free transfer. There are still gaps in the squad which must be filled quickly, if the club plans to compete for trophies next year.
Venkatesham didn’t name any names of course, but there have been several players that have been consistently linked with Arsenal this summer.
The list includes: James Rodriguez, Gabriel Magalhaes, and Thomas Partey. Additionally, Mesut Ozil could be on his way out.