Director of football ‘offered himself’ to Arsenal, club dodged a bullet by saying no

 

Ever since Arsène Wenger took over as manager at Arsenal, the French manager has pretty much total control over what goes on at the club.

As well as picking the tactics and the team, Wenger also does most of the transfer stuff, leaving Arsenal, alongside their rivals Manchester United, as one of the few clubs still not using a director of football.

There have been rumours, however, that the Gunners’ board are considering, in the event of their manager leaving at the end of the season, shuffling things around and creating a director of football position to help whoever takes over from Wenger, but that is yet to be confirmed.

Yet, that doesn’t mean Arsenal haven’t had people offering their services to do the job in the past, with Paris Saint-Germain’s Olivier Létang doing so last year, according to Romain Molina, a freelance journalist who wrote a book about Unai Emery, the Ligue 1 champions’ current manager, who gave an interview to Ultimo Diez.

He said: “He’s the first director of football at PSG to end up as an agent. He offered his services to Monaco, their biggest rivals. He got told off, but not fired… It’s amazing. He also called Lens and Arsenal.

“The guy actually told himself ‘I have the level to help Arsenal’. Many of the players don’t want to talk to him. Thiago Silva hates him”.

Describing the man’s arrogance, Molina explains all Létang has to show for it is letting Kingsley Coman go on a free, and failing to complete the signing of Neymar, something he was convinced he’d be able to do.

His actual signings aren’t at the club anymore, with the likes of Yohan Cabaye and Benjamin Stambouli all somewhere else.

Now an agent, Létang was the bridge between Leonardo and Patrick Kluivert for the role at PSG, and recently stepped down to join the firm that represents Coutinho as an agent.