Mikel Arteta has defended the Arsenal hierarchy in response to club legend Tony Adams' criticism of the Gunners' recruitment strategy.
The Gunners are guaranteed to miss out on Champions League football for the fourth successive season, and the former Arsenal captain accused head of football Raul Sanllehi and technical director Edu of being 'out of their depth'.
Speaking to TalkSport, Adams said: “I think the club is going through such a recruitment issue at the moment – it’s not relying on agents. That’s not the way to go; it’s not Arsenal DNA I’m afraid. I don’t like it. I’ve got to say it publicly.
"It took Steve Rowley 40 years to build that scouting network; it did brilliantly, got the best players from around the world. And it’s just been blown up.
"Edu, I love him, he’s a beautiful man, it’s not personal, but he has no experience of building European squads. Even Raul Sanllehi came from Barcelona, all the money in the world, it doesn’t look like he’s going to get money. Those people are out of their depth, I’m sorry."
Following Adams' scathing assessment, Arteta gave his full backing to the Arsenal top brass - but conceded the club may struggle in the coming transfer window due to the financial uncertainty triggered by the coronavirus and the Gunners' potential lack of European football.
"I have full faith," Arteta said [via the Mirror]. “I have a really good relationship with Edu, with Raul, with (managing director) Vinai Venkatesham and I am in direct contact with the owners. We know what we want to do. That’s not an issue. Everybody has the same ambition. We are all in this together.
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“But if you ask me right now what I have and how can I do it? I’m sorry, I don’t know. There are a lot of questions that we cannot resolve right now with the situation that we have financially.
"The other thing is that we don’t know whether we will be in Europe and we have players with whom we don’t know what is going to happen. That’s the reality."
Source : 90min