Edu Gaspar, the technical director of Arsenal, has revealed that the Gunners were forced to rebuild their squad as former stars were ‘killing’ them.
Arsenal has allowed a lot of high-profile players to leave the Emirates Stadium in recent years such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mesut Ozil.
The Gunners had the contracts of these players paid up to shift them off the books.
Edu was influential in offloading stars like Aubameyang.
The director said he wants to change the mentality of the players following the fact the club is going into its sixth season outside the Champions League.
Edu told The Sun:
“Arsenal should not be building to just fight for fourth. A club of our size cannot accept that.
“That’s what really hurt when I returned three years ago. I was asking, ‘What’s happening here? Everybody is comfortable and they’re all OK with that?’
“Well, f*** you, because that’s not the mentality …, now we are really going to go for things.
“So we needed a squad with personalities that say, ‘I am not losing this game — I will kill someone first but I don’t lose.
“And this summer I think we’ve added more players with that kind of character.”
Mikel Arteta’s Gunners finished fifth in the Premier League table last reason, losing the fourth-place to north London archrivals, Tottenham.
But the North London giants have reinforced massively this summer, bringing in the likes of Gabriel Jesus and Zinchenko from Manchester City, among others.
