Arsenal have come a long way since the arrivals of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Matteo Guendouzi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan to name but a few. Arsenal's former lead recruiter Sven Mislintat was behind these arrivals and now the Gunners starting eleven that sits six points clear at the top has little-to-no influence of the German as if he was never even there.
Now Mislintat finds himself in his next job having been a key member of the recruitment and executive setup at German club Stuttgart. The man dubbed 'Diamond Eyes' from his time at Borussia Dortmund said that he and the Bundesliga side failed to find common ground to continue and so he left.
Now he finds himself in his most influential role yet as sporting director at Ajax. A role that is currently occupied by Edu Gaspar at Arsenal after a promotion last year having succeeded in taking the reins from both Mislintat and previous Head of Football Raul Sanllehi.
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In an interview with 11Freunde, Mislintat explained the reasoning behind his Arsenal exit. A period where he references the differences in vision between him and a leadership headed up by Sanllehi.
"It had actually been agreed that I would become technical director, so then I would be around the team on a daily basis," he revealed. "But the new leadership had their own agenda and other candidates.
"We had different approaches," he added. "Previously we had a strong systematic approach to transfers, a mixture of watching things live as well as quality data and video analysis – Arsenal actually owns their own data company.
"That meant that we acted independently, we knew about all markets and players in all positions that came into question. However, the new leadership work more strongly with what they are offered from clubs or agents through their own networks."
But simply, this Ajax job is on paper the perfect place for Mislintat to thrive. The Dutch side have been able to dominate the Eredivisie for the past four seasons with former Arsenal winger Marc Overmars in the role of director of football affairs before leaving after he sent a "series of inappropriate messages to several female colleagues" in February of 2022.
It has been a long process before landing with Mislintat. The recruiter thrived by finding young stars who developed and were sold for big fees as shown by his work at Dortmund.
Ajax have been a club made famous by both their academy and talent identification that has seen players like Matthijs de Ligt, Donny van de Beek, Frenkie de Jong and others. In the current squad, they’ve added young talents like Owen Wijndal, Francisco Conceicao, Brian Brobbey and Mohammed Kudus that continue to help them fight for the higher places in the league.
Although Feyenoord have overtaken Ajax this season, the Dutch side are still able to field plenty of their young stars that clubs like Arsenal cannot. Mavropanos for instance, one of Mislintat's first deals at the club, simply had no hope of getting much first-team action besides the odd game here and there.
At Ajax, Mislintat's gems will get the chance to play, develop and thrive. All the while keeping the club at a very competitive domestic level; creating the perfect scenario that he simply was not afforded in north London.
Edu, meanwhile, has been able to establish himself at the club and make signings which have directly contributed to where the club are. Signings which changed the age profile, the mentality for reasonable prices and deals which not everyone was always behind but have proven to be worth the investment.
The Brazilian has also given the club a platform to sell players for a profit. Nuno Tavares, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Marquinhos could all move on for more money in the summer whilst others have left on loan and Edu will be looking to recoup fees and then some on those as well.
Arsenal have come out for the better in Mislintat's absence and perhaps his own career has benefitted from the divorce also. Win-win all round.
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