Sporting Director Edu to leave Arsenal - Why Brazilian has been pivotal to Gunners rebuild

After a miserable weekend for the Gunners faithful, in which Arsenal lost 1-0 to Newcastle and fell seven points behind Liverpool in the Premier League title race, the last thing Arsenal fans would have wanted to wake up to on Monday morning was the news that Sporting Director Edú Gaspar was leaving the club. However, reports emerged early on Monday of exactly that, as several media outlets revealed that the Arsenal sporting director, who joined the club in 2019, Edu, had taken the decision to leave the club. The Brazilian's exit comes amid interest in him for a role with Evangelos Marinakis' group of clubs, which currently include Nottingham Forest, Olympiacos and Rio Ave, although it is unclear whether Edu has agreed to join that group as of yet.

It's been widely reported that Edu's decision has taken Arsenal by surprise, with the sporting director having recently been away in Brazil on personal matters, only arriving back late last week. Edu joined Arsenal as technical director in July 2019 before becoming the club's first-ever sporting director in November 2022, and the Brazilian has played a crucial role in rebuilding Arsenal, taking the Gunners from one of the most chaotic clubs in European football to one of the most stable. The 46-year-old shares a strong bond with Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta, and has been a key part of the Gunners recruitment process in recent years. The news will come as a huge blow to the club. From a team who missed out on last season's title by just two points, and looked one of the most stable clubs in Europe, suddenly, things could be creeping back into chaos at the Emirates. 

How Edu has helped rebuild Arsenal into Premier League title challengers

When former Invincible title winner with the club, Edu, returned as Technical Director in 2019, it was off the back of Arsenal being a complete mess, on and off the field. The ongoings must have been unrecognisable to Edu of those when he was a player at Arsenal in the early 2000's. Unai Emery was the manager at the time, the club had just missed out on Champions League football for the third season running, and recruitment had been an utter shambles. For a long time, Arsenal had been allowing top stars to enter their last years of contract, which had played a part in forcing the club to allow the likes of Robin van Persie and Alexis Sánchez to leave for rival club Manchester United. While Aaron Ramsey had left club on a free to Juventus, and Mesut Özil had been given a lucrative long-term contract after entering his final year, despite the German being in his early 30's.

In Arsenal's All or Nothing documentary on Amazon, filmed in the 2021/22 season, Edu says: "'If a guy is performing and has a big salary, that's not a problem. When the player is 26-plus, big salary and he's not performing, he's killing you. You don't have a valuation to sell the player, the player is comfortable – Arsenal, London, beautiful, everything is fantastic – and a good salary… how many players with that kind of characteristics did we have in the past? 80% of the squad." Edu created a five-year plan in 2019 when he played a big role in appointing Arteta as manager, and promised the signs of improvement would begin bearing fruit in the 2022/23 season. That campaign Arsenal shocked everyone by challenging Manchester City for the title.

Edu had, without acquiesce, backed Arteta through the tough times. In the 2020/21 season, Arsenal had gone seven games without a win and were 15th in the table in December. In the 2021/22 campaign, the Gunners lost each of their opening three games without scoring a goal. But Edu always stood by Arteta, and had the vision to see that it was going to take time to get Arsenal back competing at the very top level. With financial backing, and the cohesion and alignment of Edu and Arteta, that's exactly what Arsenal have done. But now it looks as though, that final hurdle of getting over the line and winning a trophy, might not be reached with the pair together at the club.

Arsenal's most expensive signings since Edu arrived

Arsenal had a reputation in the early Arsène Wenger days of not spending much money. In the late days, they had a reputation of spending money poorly. There can be little doubt that Arsenal's transfer 'hit-rate' has improved significantly since Edu joined in 2019. The most expensive signings since then are listed below, with the majority of the big money spent by the Gunners in recent seasons paying off, with Nicolas Pépé, who was signed from Lille for €80m in 2019, the notable exception. The club's record signing Declan Rice, signed for €116.6m from West Ham in the summer of 2023, has been a figure of consistency at the club and already gone someway to justifying his price-tag.

When we look further down the list, the signing of club captain Martin Ødegaard for just €35m from Real Madrid will go down as one of the great Premier League transfer coups of recent years - the Norwegian currently has a market value of €110m. All of the the 10 players above, barring Thomas Partey who was 27, were 25 years old or younger when Arsenal signed them. A key strategy since Edu arrived has been centred around lowering the average age of the squad. In September, when the manager signed a new contract, Edu had outlined their new long-term ambitions. There had been no signs he was considering leaving his role. The news will have come as a shock to all, and Arsenal are going to have a serious task on their hands replacing the Brazilian.