Overmars to return to Arsenal in director of football-style role

Overmars to return to Arsenal in director of football-style role

 

Marc Overmars is set to return to Arsenal in a potential director of football role from next season.

The former Gunners winger, who made 141 appearances and scored 40 goals for them between 1997 and 2000, has served as Ajax’s director of football since the summer of 2012 but is poised to return to London.

Overmars, 44, is set to fulfil many of the duties performed by Dick Law, the club’s transfer fixer who left at the end of last month.

Manager Arsene Wenger has always been reluctant to work in conjunction with a director of football given that he is reluctant to delegate.

Earlier this year, Wenger said: ‘I never understand what it means, director of football. I’m manager of Arsenal and as long as I am manager, I will decide what happens on the technical front. That’s it.’

It therefore remains to be seen how much influence Overmars will have though he brings plenty of experience in such technical matters from five years in the role at Ajax.

The behind-the-scenes shake-up comes after a difficult summer transfer window in which Arsenal failed in their pursuit of Monaco pair Kylian Mbappe and Thomas Lemar, despite offering £92million for the latter.

They also failed to bring in PSG’s Julian Draxler on deadline day to facilitate the £60m sale of Alexis Sanchez to Manchester City.

Arsenal were beaten 2-1 at Watford in their latest Premier League outing and return to action away to Red Star Belgrade in the Europa League on Thursday.

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