Even with Martin Odegaard's return, is it too late for Arsenal to turn things around?
The timing of the news that Edu is stepping down as Arsenal’s sporting director could have been better.
The sense that Arsenal’s season might be unravelling had already taken hold following a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle that left them three games without a win and seven points adrift of leaders Liverpool and the sporting director jumping ship only adds to the sense of an era beginning to wane.
But the reality isn’t really as bad as all that.
Edu’s role stretches back to the darkest days post Arsene Wenger, covering everything from £72 million on Nicolas Pepe to £30 million on Martin Odegaard, and as Arsenal move into a new reality of requiring just one or two elite players per summer his skills – whatever you make of those - aren’t essential anymore.
Besides, he was never particularly close with Arteta and, as performances in 2024/25 have highlighted, Edu’s last transfer window at the club ranks among his worst.
Arsenal “deserved to lose” at Newcastle, as Mikel Arteta said after the match. They were stodgy and boxy, playing sideways far too often and lacking any of the positional fluidity or neat triangular passing we have come to expect from this team.
For some this is the inevitable endpoint of Arteta’s surprising reinvention as a modern Jose Mourinho. Arsenal are getting bigger and meatier at the back, more reliant on set-pieces, and more instinctively risk-averse in their football.
But a more plausible explanation is that Edu’s transfers have stopped working.
The squad looks increasingly unbalanced and it’s difficult to understand why Arsenal prioritised signing Mikel Merino, yet another controlling midfielder, over a striker, or indeed why they let Emile Smith Rowe go without ensuring there is cover should Odegaard get injured.
Contrary to the prevailing feeling Odegaard getting injured is pretty much the only problem Arsenal have. Before his injury a couple of bad results could be waved away by those petulant red cards, whereas since Odegaard’s absence the football has gone stale.
Arteta’s first solution was to play Merino at the top of a 4-2-3-1, an experiment that ended within half an hour at Bournemouth when Gabriel Maghalaes’ red card forced a change.
But even before the dismissal Arsenal were stuttering, Merino making the second fewest passes (10) of any Arsenal player on the pitch and the Gunners mustering a single shot on goal.
For the 2-2 draw with Liverpool and 1-0 defeat at Newcastle, Arteta tried a 4-4-2 with Leandro Trossard and Kai Havertz both drop off into the number ten space.
It hardly needs to be said that it hasn’t worked.
The 4-4-2 is a formation of boxes, which is why pretty much nobody lines up this way when in possession. Players don’t have as many 45 degree passing angles, forcing them to play sideways when the straight-ahead pass is blocked by the opposition, hence Arsenal’s ‘progressive passes’ plummeting from 55.4 per game last season to 39.8 in 2024/25.
Blocking the pass is precisely what Newcastle did, sitting in an ultra-compressed 4-4-2 that allowed them to stunt Merino and Declan Rice and double up on Bukayo Saka.
They weren’t the only ones to do this. Arsenal have managed an xG under 1.0 in five of their ten Premier League games this season and have had just six shots on target across the last three games combined.
And so, as Edu departs and we reflect on what it means for the club, what we learn is not that Arteta’s Arsenal are coming apart at the seams but rather that poor transfers over the last few windows have left them far too reliant on Odegaard and Saka.
Thankfully Odegaard is back now, yet the damage may already be done.
Chelsea are tough opponents and defeat at Stamford Bridge would see Arsenal fall nine points off the top going into the November international break.
In other words even if Saka and Odegaard play every other game this season it might already be too late.
If that comes to pass Edu’s legacy will be defined by his failure to purchase backup for either of Arsenal’s biggest stars.
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