Football
Mattias Karen, Arsenal correspondent 6y

Arsene Wenger still adjusting to Arsenal's new transfer set-up

LONDON -- Arsene Wenger says he's still getting used to Arsenal's "new and unusual" recruitment set-up going into the January transfer window, despite already signing one player identified by recently appointed chief scout Sven Mislintat.

Arsenal brought in Mislintat from Borussia Dortmund in November to head up the club's scouting operations, part of a backroom shake-up that also saw Barcelona's former director of football Raul Sanllehi hired to take over transfer negotiation duties.

While Sanllehi won't start the job until February, Mislintat has already made an impact by recommending the signing of Greek defender Konstantinos Mavropanos, who was bought for around £2 million in a deal completed Thursday.

Wenger confirmed that Mavropanos -- who will be sent out on loan -- was a Mislintat signing, but said the new system is still a work in progress.

Mislintat replaced long-time Wenger ally Steve Rowley, while Sanllehi is taking over the duties previously handled by Dick Law, and it remains unclear whether chief executive Ivan Gazidis had Wenger's full backing in making the new hires.

Wenger has always had full control over all football-related operations at Arsenal and had previously mocked the idea of working with a director of football -- although Sanllehi's official title at Arsenal will be head of football relations.

"It is important to find a new balance," Wenger said. "For them it's more difficult than for me because they have to adapt to a new environment, they discover suddenly a different structure. At the moment it's a bit new and unusual because it's an important period, but we're not used to working together," Wenger said.

The Arsenal boss has made it clear he wants to sign at least one "exceptional" player this January window, and so getting the operations up and running as quickly as possible has been his biggest priority this week.

He said the best way of doing so is "by communicating" -- and cited that as one of the reasons he wouldn't meet with the FA to discuss his charge of verbally abusing referee Mike Dean after the 1-1 draw at West Brom last Sunday.

"That's why I said I have no time to take care of my charges because I have meetings with them to talk about problems and how we can make it all work," Wenger said ahead of Sunday's FA Cup match at Nottingham Forest.

"Because for Sven, it's important to know all the scouts. We have a big scouting system so he has to meet everybody and to explain all how it works. That's why it's very time consuming at the moment."

Arsenal travel to Nottingham on Sunday to start their defence of the FA Cup, a third-round tie that Wenger claimed could be trickier than facing a lower-table Premier League side more focused on avoiding relegation.

"A Championship team is more difficult to play sometimes than a Premiership team coming out of the Christmas period. Because the Championship teams are prepared to fight for it, and the Premiership teams sometimes ease off a little bit when they play not to go down," he said.

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