BigPoppaPump
Reeling from Laca & Kos nightmares
In 2006 Giles Grimandi became Arsenal’s chief scout in France. The french talent market had been the bedrock of Arsène’s early success at the club, and Grimandi’s posting there should have seen more of the same, as France began to produce a conveyer belt of the finest talent in world football: Pogba, Mbappe, Kante and Dembele to name but a few.
However, while most of those French talents would have jumped at the chance of playing for Arsenal, Grimandi instead had us waste millions signing utter bums like David Ospina, Sanogo, Gervinho, Giroud and Chamakh.
And it gets worse. Giles didn’t just fail to spot the top talent sloshing all over the place in the French league, he actively counselled against them. See for example:
I am #raging.
It’s easy to say this in hindsight, there’s a reason Kante ended up at Leicester in the Championship. He had his breakout season there and now people are like ‘why didn’t we sign him back then?’ Ok then why did Chelsea wait until he had title winning performances?
Arsène had no use for Kante anyway, he’s not an Arsène type player.
Though I do agree our scouting is terrible, but that’s cos of players we did sign not that ones we didn’t.