Arsene Wenger takes swipe at Sven Mislentat after Arsenal talent spotter identifies new signing Konstantinos Mavropanos

Arsene Wenger takes swipe at Sven Mislentat after Arsenal talent spotter identifies new signing Konstantinos Mavropanos

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Arsene Wenger has taken a subtle dig at new Arsenal head of recruitment Sven Mislintat following the signing of Konstantinos Mavropanos.

The former Borussia Dortmund talent spotter’s appointment was announced in November, shortly before Raul Sanllehi, formerly of Barcelona, was confirmed as the north London club’s new director of football.

Wenger revealed that Mislentat was responsible for identifying Mavropanos, the 20-year-old Greek centre-half who will immediately be loaned out to a Bundesliga club, but claimed he is capable of doing little to expand the Arsenal scouting network’s already encyclopedic knowledge of European football.

Asked whether Mislintat had identified Mavropanos, Wenger said: ‘Yes.

‘We talk. We know the players. We know. It’s not that we discover, we know every single player in Europe before Sven arrived.

‘Sometimes, in a little club in Germany, he might know somebody we might ignore.’

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Arsene Wenger takes dig at new Arsenal transfer guru after Konstantinos Mavropanos deal
Arsenal confirmed the signing of Konstantinos Mavropanos on Thursday (Picture: Getty)

On building a relationship with Arsenal’s new appointments, Wenger added: ‘He [Raul] starts only on the 1 February. Look, it is important to find a new balance.

‘For them, it’s more difficult than for me, because they have to adapt to a new environment, they discover suddenly a different structure and overall that is… at the moment it’s a bit new and unusual because it’s an important period but we are not used to work together.”

‘That’s why I said I have no time to take care of my charge because I’ve meetings with them, to talk about how we can make it all work because, for them, Sven, it’s important to know all the scouts.

‘We have a big scouting system so he has to meet everybody and to explain how it works, that’s why it’s very time-consuming at the moment.’

More: Arsenal FC

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