Mikel Arteta set for reunion with 'really important' ex-Arsenal ally who could be sacked

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It’s been a long journey for Arsenal and Mikel Arteta to get to where they are today, and there will be a timely reminder of their recent past at the City Ground on Saturday.

Arsenal will see a familiar face when they travel to face Nottingham Forest in the Premier League . Forest global head of football Edu will likely be inside the stadium in Nottingham, 14 months after he decided to leave Arsenal .

Edu was a key figure at the Emirates Stadium during the majority of Arteta’s spell as manager. And he will deserve some of the credit if 2025/26 is indeed the campaign that sees the Gunners end their 22-year wait for the Premier League title.

Edu was Arteta’s precursor at Arsenal, arriving in July 2019, six months before the former midfielder took charge. Like Arteta, he had played for Arsenal and therefore had a connection to the club. That connection helped foster a strong relationship between the two and it was to prove a fruitful connection.

“I just hope he stays here for a long time because I think it’s going to be a really positive thing for the club,” Arteta said about Edu in 2022. “I work with him really well, I think he’s a super important figure at the club who represents all the values and ideas that we want, to do everything in the right way, and hopefully that will be the case.

“There is a lot happening in a football club and he has a huge role and he has a really good way of communicating with people and managing a lot of things that happen daily. For me and for the team he is really important.”

Edu acted as a sounding board for Arteta, having cut his teeth as director of football at Corinthians and in a similar role with the Brazil national team. But it was for transfers that Edu became best known at Arsenal. Like everyone involved in player recruitment, it wasn’t all good.

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Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, there are some notable successes – and ones which Arsenal will display against Edu’s current employer. The 47-year-old and his agent and friend Kia Joorabchian were the architects of Gabriel Martinelli’s move to north London in 2019, while Edu is also credited with the arrivals of Martin Odegaard in 2021 and Declan Rice in 2023.

William Saliba, Gabriel, Leandro Trossard , Kai Havertz, Jurrien Timber, David Raya , and plenty more of the current crop, all arrived under Edu’s watch. They now form the backbone of the team which sits top of the Premier League and Champions League and are odds-on favourites to become the first Arsenal team since the Invincibles to win the league title.

There are notable flops – Nicolas Pepe, Fabio Vieira and William among them – but it’s fair to say that Edu’s reputation remains intact at Arsenal, and will be boosted if this season ends with silverware.

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Edu left amid some reported tensions behind the scenes at Arsenal, with the loan signing of Raheem Sterling in the summer of 2024, instead of an expensive permanent addition, causing friction, but also because of the attraction of what was being offered by Forest. Owner Evangelos Marinakis had courted Edu via Joorabchian and offered to treble his salary to around £3m per year and hire him to expand his multi-club model.

Things have not gone entirely to plan. Stability has been sorely lacking at Forest, who have burned through managers and players at an alarming rate; Nuno Espirito Santo to Ange Postecoglou to Sean Dyche this season demonstrates the ethos nicely.

And according to a report from the Telegraph earlier this month, Edu might not be too secure either. As global head of football, Edu is responsible for all “football-related functions, including recruitment, performance, squad strategy and player development”, a wide-reaching brief which has brought him into conflict with others.

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Nuno left three games into the season after a massive falling out with Edu over transfers. The Brazilian had overseen the arrivals of Douglas Luiz and Omari Hutchinson, players not wanted by Nuno, who had been overruled in the boardroom. The struggles of Oleksandr Zinchenko, after arriving on loan from Arsenal at the behest of Edu, and the offloading of Arnaud Kalimuendo on loan to Eintracht Frankfurt, months after Forest paid £26m for him, have not helped things.

Edu was reported to be on shaky ground before the crucial 2-1 win over Nuno’s West Ham but the defeat by Wrexham in the FA Cup won’t have helped things. If he is cast aside in Nottingham in the coming months, Edu may at least be able to reflect on the success of his former club at the end of the season.

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