On Monday, Sky Sports reports that Edu Caspar is stepping down as sporting director at Arsenal. The Brazilian has been with Arsenal since 2019. First as technical director, then sports director from 2022. In tandem with Mikel Arteta, Edu has built up the squad that has threatened Manchester City’s hegemony in the Premier League. English Goal has ranked Edu’s signings, and of course we love who is placed as the biggest.
Goal’s full analysis of the ten signings can be found here, we will settle for the ranking and Martin Ødegaard.
Here is Goal’s ranking of Edu’s top ten signings:
10. Gabriel Jesus
9. David Raya
8, Oleksandr Zinchenko
7. Leandro Trossard
6. Ben White
5, Declan Rice
4. Gabriel Magalhaes
3. Gabriel Martinelli
2. William Saliba
- Martin Ødegaard
Goal: “In terms of transfer fee, influence, influence and how a deal had to be forced through, the purchase of Martin Ødegaard is indisputably Edu’s biggest signing.”
“The Norwegian came in the 2020-21 season when he found playing time at Real Madrid hard to come by, and he was admittedly slow to adapt to the English game, which is why Arsenal didn’t try to make the transfer permanent in the first place.”
“Instead, Arteta reportedly wanted former Leicester City player James Maddison as his new creative midfielder, but the Foxes’ asking price of £60 million proved prohibitive. The talks with Leicester ended up in a dead end, which is why Edu called Florentino Perez again, this time to bring in Ødegaard on a permanent deal.
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“Within 12 months of his second season, Ødegaard was appointed Arsenal captain at just 23 years old. He has delivered on his wonderkid status and the first team is struggling greatly in his absence, which reinforces how important a signing he has been. Ødegaard is Edu’s finest piece of work and will be a standalone headline on his CV.
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