
Aubameyang, Mkhytarian and Sokratis the three recent most important players who have signed for the club in the last two windows used to play in Borussia Dortmund. Co-incidence, certainly not because Sven Mislintat, current Arsenal head of recruitment joined the club in November 2017 after serving as the head recruiter for Dortmund for 10 years.[spacer height=”30px”]
Sokratis Papastathopoulos to Arsenal makes sense. An experienced defender who can guide his compatriot Mavropanos for the next couple of seasons.
Worth noting that they also share the same agent who has a strong relationship with Sven Mislintat. pic.twitter.com/kxm3Wu4mko
— Chris Wheatley (@ChrisWheatley) May 28, 2018
[spacer height=”30px”]Born in 1972 in the north-western German town of Kamen, Mislintat played football for VfL Kamen and SV Holzwickede. After completing his sports science degree at Ruhr-University Bochum, Mislintat was hired by Borussia Dortmund as a scout in 2006. With Hard work and perseverance, he quickly worked his way up the ranks.[spacer height=”30px”]
His first success at Dortmund was finding the Japanese attacker Shinji Kagawa from the Japanese League for only about €350,000. Kagawa was incredible for Dortmund in his first season winning the Bundesliga and being named in the team of the season.[spacer height=”30px”]
This increased Mislintat’s profile at Dortmund. Robert Lewandowski and Mats Hummels were his next 2 big signings. During his time there almost each and every player which he had scouted ended up making his club a lot lot more than than what they actually cost when Sven Mislintat spotted them and brought them to the club. He even scouted both Aubameyang and Ousmane Dembele for Dortmund, both being hugely profitable and prolific more so to the club.[spacer height=”30px”]
Before leaving for Arsenal, the chief scout was approached by Bayern Munich to become technical director and was also wanted by a host of big name clubs all over Europe and in less than a year having moved to his new employers, Sven Mislintat has already signed eight players for Arsenal including three former Dortmund players which has already gone far in re-establishing his Diamond Eye nickname for his new club.[spacer height=”30px”]
Signings made after Sven Mislintat joined Arsenal
Mavropanos – 20
Aubameyang – 29
Mkhitaryan – 29
Lichtsteiner – 34
Leno – 26
Sokratis – 30In progress:
Torreira – 22
Mattéo Guendouzi – 19I am excited about our season. Mixed with experience and talented youngs #COYG #AFC pic.twitter.com/29iyTwQ4TV
— Arsenal India 🇮🇳 (@ArsenalIndians) July 8, 2018
[spacer height=”30px”]Looking back it was probably our new chief of scout who was diligently pulling the strings behind the scenes and establishing the deals to get most of our transfer business done in the January transfer window and my word how they have succeeded.[spacer height=”30px”]
Into his second transfer window at the club and Sven Mislintat is already proving as important as current Arsenal head coach- Unai Emery in the scheme of things. Currently, the club is reconstructing itself with a new manager and many new people in the backroom staff, new players in the squad and in general replacing a mammoth of a man who basically ran the all on his own.[spacer height=”30px”]
It is now Sven Mislintat’s responsibility to make sure that we buy players who could make Arsenal great again. The club has been criticized for the past 10-12 years with problems in a lot of areas- mainly in the defence. Arsene Wenger had been criticized too by the arsenal fans for many reasons, one being the dithering and last ditch transfer policy.[spacer height=”30px”]
However, since Sven Mislintat has come to the club, fans have genuine reason for optimism and have enjoyed the past 7-8 months, that said Arsenal reached 6th in the premier league this season and yet seem in a much better place than imagined and its hugely down to our new chief of scout Sven Mislintat. The first deal he made for Arsenal was trading Alexis Sanchez for Henrikh Mkhytarian for free.[spacer height=”30px”]
Ian Wright on Konstantinos Mavropanos
He was Sven Mislintat’s first signing
But I haven’t seen a performance like this, the anticipation, the pace, the awareness, from Arsenal for a long time.
For a 20-year-old to come in and be as cool and as calm as he was is so impressive. pic.twitter.com/PSVIYO6fCD
— ARSENAL (@tomgunner14) April 30, 2018
[spacer height=”30px”]With Mkhytarian’s wages lower and him being more efficient in the 2nd half of the premier league made him a great signing. He also brought a Greek defender, Konstantinos Mavropanos, from the Greek league in the January transfer window. A player who wasn’t known to many at all but produced a great performance against Manchester United.[spacer height=”30px”]
Following that he pulled off signing a genuine marquee player in the Winter transfer window too – Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. Honestly A lot of fans couldn’t believe that Arsenal had actually managed to land such a prolific striker given our condition in Europe, such is the impression Sven has made in such a little time.[spacer height=”30px”]
[spacer height=”30px”]This season following up with the clubs policy of buying for the future, Sven Mislintat has already managed to secure one of the biggest talents of the World cup in Lucas Torreira and that too prior too the World cup starting. So much for deadline days now. Bernd Leno, Sokratis Papastathopolous another of his Dortmund connections, Stephen Lichsteiner, Matteo Guendouzi each and everyone of those have been signed under Sven Mislintat and frankly that does generate a huge amount of excitement and anticipation among the supporters for the new season.[spacer height=”30px”]
Adjusting in London and signing many players in a very short period of time just shows how efficient Mislintat has been in such a short time. It has been mentioned in news reports that he personally scouts a player 5-6 times before putting pen to paper, which is unbelievable. His signings have proved that he has great potential too all the more underlying his primary importance to our new operational setup under Sven Mislintat, Raul Sanllehi and Ivan Gazidis.[spacer height=”30px”]
"They call me, not everyday, but a lot to tell me to come and join this big family…It is beautiful to join players that I know very well."
– Sokratis on Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang. pic.twitter.com/HjFT9z70On
— TheArseneView (@TheArseneView) July 2, 2018
[spacer height=”30px”]Arsenal’s performance next season will tell whether Sven has done a good job in this transfer window but Instead of saying that Arsenal’s future now lies in Emery’s hands, I would choose to say it lies in Sven’s. If Arsenal are to reach the golden heights of Arsene Wenger’s era once again it would have to be with genuine world class talents that only Sven Mislintat can discover and that will be the foundation of any team that can potentially win the League.[spacer height=”30px”]
So if I had to choose a German Magician in Arsenal, I wouldn’t choose Mesut Ozil, Sven’s the real magician in my opinion.[spacer height=”30px”]