Arsenal “not close” to appointing a new manager

No matter what else you read and where else you read it, there is one source of Arsenal news that is unimpeachably correct, largely because he’s basically Arsenal’s official source of leakes, if such a thing can be said to have an official source. He’s had the trust of the club for a long time, and they’ve used him to reveal things “unofficially” for a long time. That source is David Ornstein, who has earned himself the nickname “the Ornacle” because generally when he says something, it happens.

So today, when I saw this, it kinda got my attention:

There’s a lot to unpack in those less than 280 characters. First and foremost, it’s a confirmation of what we all suspected, that Ivan Gazidis, Raul Sanllehi, and Sven Mislintat are the ones searching for a new manager (not Stan or Josh Kroenke). It also looks like, while the club have previously said they want to have a new boss in place by the World Cup, the successful conclusion of said timeline might be closer to mid-June than mid-May.

And that’s fine; I’m not sure Arsenal need to have someone in place on Monday in order to successfully operate this summer and get players in place should opportunities arise. One of the nuggets from Arsene’s final press conference the other day (which is well worth a read or a watch, by the way) is that Arsenal is a company with over 700 employees; I haven’t seen an org chart, but I would be willing to bet that Gazidis, Sanllehi, and Mislintat all have staffs that do the daily work of sourcing/recruiting talent, so I wouldn’t worry too much about the new manager not being in place right away.

Mikel Arteta’s name was brought up again, but that’s nothing we didn’t already know - the unofficial shortlist doesn’t appear to be changing all that much these days, so I would expect his name to be linked a lot, until it isn’t, or until he’s hired. Whoever gets hired won’t be hired this week, from the sounds of it, so sit back, relax, and, uh, enjoy the ride?