ANDREA BERTA SIGNS FOR ARSENAL

SOME HOT THOUGHTS ON WHY THIS MOVE SOUNDS TASTY

David Ornstein dropped the news that Andrea Berta will be joining Arsenal as our new Sporting Director. The Italian free agent had a slew of offers, but he turned them all down, prioritizing Arsenal as his next move… and I’m at a loss for words.

This really is an exceptional hire.

I wrote about Andrea Berta and the job he did at Atleti way back before Edu. He always felt like the kind of superstar name that might be beyond Arsenal back then, but the work the club has done since to get us back to the very top of the game has opened doors with the very best talents in football.

Andrea Berta, weirdly, just seems to fit everything we want to do as a club. Even coming from the most sufferball club on the planet seems to align with some of Arsenal’s darker tendencies.

This is the total opposite of Don Raul, who was a better fit for a club like Manchester United—one that could splurge with no accountability. He felt like a big name who could get big deals done, when in actuality, he was just a big spender that signed whatever looked hot in the market.

Andrea Berta embodies the challenger-brand mentality we have at Arsenal. Atlético Madrid are the third-most powerful entity in Spain, both financially and in terms of popularity. Similarly, Arsenal have been behind Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City over the years—financially and in squad depth—sitting with a wage bill that was fifth in the league until recently.

At the core of Berta’s approach is maximizing every resource. When you’re going up against Barcelona and Real Madrid, you can’t outspend them. That means you have to own the mid-market of players. You’re never going to out-commercialize them, so selling players is key to staying in the race. You need the best coaches, the right fitness strategies, and players who play beyond their numbers.

These are all tools Arsenal needs.

I was in favor of an internal promotion if the right candidate was available, but I wrote the other day about a key concern: everyone at the club right now is watching Arteta make mistakes with load management, and no one is stepping in. I know firsthand how small the football world is. Jobs are scarce, which makes loyalty a key currency. Even at lower levels of the game, talent follows their leaders. It’s an incestuous industry because it’s 1) extremely competitive and 2) fleeting—coaches don’t stay in jobs for long.

Why does this matter? When Arteta surrounds himself with young coaches and technical staff, they pledge fealty to him. That’s great when things are going well, but when they’re not, no one steps up to tell the boss he’s got breakfast sandwich on his face. That issue seems to be one we’re struggling with this season—no one has the seniority or the guts to call out a major problem.

Edu wasn’t that guy either—he was more of a figurehead. Arteta has ruled the training ground for a while now. It appears leadership has recognized this as having the hallmarks of problem over the longterm (Wenger-like), and they’ve addressed it by hiring someone from the outside—someone with prestige, a winning mentality, a bit of sauce, and a skill set we’ve never had at Arsenal.

I always believe surrounding yourself with people better than you is the best way to succeed. That’s not always the case in football. Pep Guardiola does it—just look at the experience of some of his assistant coaches. He wants the best voices in his ear. Ferguson did the same. This move feels like something in that direction.

The club will also have gauged Berta’s emotional intelligence. Arsenal is a rocket ship. Is it sputtering? Yes. But it is a rocket ship. When you enter a high-performing organization, earning trust is difficult—especially if your ideas challenge sporting orthodoxy or even feel sacrilegious. It takes a skilled operator to build trust without disrupting momentum. The temptation in these roles is to assert absolute control early on—shake things up, make heads roll to show authority. But that can backfire. Look at Dan Ashworth at United—he lasted five months because he threw himself in front of the Amorim bus to push Gareth Southgate. He was probably right, but being right at the expense of your job is poor social EQ. Berta has the trophies and consistency to point to, that should hold sway with Arteta. Well, it has to.

On paper, Andrea Berta looks like a brilliant move.

He has two key jobs:

Load Management

I know nothing about what Berta did behind the scenes at Atlético. Nothing. But I do know this: Thomas Partey wasn’t an injury-prone mess there.

Beyond talent acquisition, the most important thing Berta can fix at Arsenal is our approach to load management. Arsenal need to be able to compete in two major trophies each year and land domestic cups once we’ve done that. The only way that happens is by maximizing player availability. Arteta hasn’t done that well over the last four years. He’s either overworked players so they lack freshness at the business end of the season—or broken them so they aren’t available at all.

Right now, load management is dictated by Arteta. That needs to change. The imbalance behind the scenes must be corrected, and Arteta needs to be guided so he can sustain success over the long term.

Squad Building

Arsenal already have plans in place for this summer, and Berta will likely assess and tweak them where needed. A big part of his appeal is his ability to get deals over the line—something we struggled with last summer. That doesn’t mean his record is flawless. His biggest blunder? João Félix for a ghastly fee. But you have to judge a Sporting Director by the full body of work and his full body of work has been consistent and delivered big trophies against the odds.

Another major factor in KSE’s decision to hire him is likely his record in selling players. That means structuring wages wisely—high enough to retain talent, but not so inflated that they become unsellable. Timing is everything when it comes to exits, and Atlético have moved on a lot of big names for strong fees. Arsenal? Not so much. We’ve been abysmal at timing player sales, often telegraphing exits and devaluing the final transfer fee.

Think about Aaron Ramsdale. We renewed his contract at his peak, then benched him for a year. We turned down £45 million from Villa for ESR, then let him idle for 18 months before selling him for a lower fee. I’m hoping Berta has a better feel for timing the market.

The biggest opportunity for Arsenal this summer is the striker position. Arsenal want Sesko—that’s the guy everyone at the club loves. Will Berta agree, or will our focus shift? Gross rumors of Jonathan David have surfaced, as well as links to Lautaro Martínez, who would be expensive and outside our usual profile. Right now, Berta hasn’t brought anything to the table, so these are just speculative rumors—but you’d imagine the club wants their new Sporting Director to shape the final plan, rather than running with a strategy designed by someone dreaming of Nottingham Forest when ideas were being stress tested last year.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m really happy with this outcome.

Berta has a tough job, but he’s not inheriting a disaster. His role is to add excellence to an already excellent product. He needs to ensure player contracts reflect market value, identify sycophants in Arteta’s staff who are just surviving instead of pushing the club forward, de-risk our summer strategy, and make sure every recruitment decision is well-calculated—even if unpopular.

Ultimately, his job is to hop aboard Arsenal’s rocket ship and add value to the crew so we’re firing on all cylinders next season.

This is the most Phase 5 thing we’ve done since signing Declan Rice. A great day for football nerds.

I’m sure this won’t affect today’s result, but it sends a message to the dressing room about how serious we are about winning.

That’s all I’ve got. See you in the comments. x