Arsenal Make Interesting Internal Appointment As Restructure Continues

Ben Knapper, who was an analyst at the club, has been given the role of ‘loan manager’…

Arsenal have reportedly promoted lead analyst Ben Knapper to a new role defined as ‘loan manager’ as the club continues to restructure all areas of the club, Training Ground Guru reports.

According to the report, this is another development we’ve been lagging in, in terms of our Premier League rivals who all have someone in a similar role.

Knapper will be tasked with keeping tabs on the players out on loan which will hopefully improve our system of sending players out on loan.

We’ve had a number of players sent back from their loan spell prematurely with little knowledge as to what was happening during their time away.

Serge Gnabry was treated badly at West Brom while Ben Crowley was had his loan spells at Oxford and Barnsley cut short.

The report also states Knapper will analyse where the players should be sent, another area in which we’ve been lacking. As a club which expects our players to play a certain way, how we even contemplated loaning Tony Pullis a player baffles the mind.

We currently have a number of players away on loans spells across Europe, including Reiss Nelson, David Ospina, Calum Chambers and Takuma Asano.

While this move should be welcomed, you have to wonder how archaic our set-up was over the years compared to our rivals – and that malaise certainly filtered down onto the pitch.