Arsenal great and former academy chief Liam Brady says the club's slide has been a long time in the making.
Brady, 64, spoke of his sorrow at the state of affairs at the north London club and laid the blame for the mess squarely at the door of bigwig Ivan Gazidis in a savage attack.
The Gunners' ex-academy director said the former chief executive had forced out Wenger following a bitter battle over transfers – and then employed 'total failures' to oversee a recruitment policy that has ended with a wasteful £350million splurge in the market.
Speaking on the Keys and Gray podcast, Brady said: “When you're winning, everyone gets on fine.
“But it began to unravel at Arsenal when the team was not challenging for the top four – it ended with Arsene being hung out to dry by Gazidis.
“They didn't really have a working relationship – and the manager really has to have a working relationship with the chief executive.
“There was a constant battle for control on spending on transfers and contracts with Wenger. In the end, the manager left and Gazidis got control. The people he put in place since have been total failures.
“If you look at Gazidis's track record on buying players and that of Raul Sanllehi – who has recently left the club – the money that's been spent in the last five or six years, you're talking £300-350m.
“Just look at the players we have signed under Sanllehi alone. Pepe for £72m. Lille have never sold a player for £72m.
“Gazidis had this idea he wanted to take the power of signing players away from the manager. After Arsene, Unai Emery came in. He was very poor, he couldn't even speak English, running up and down the sidelines waving his arms around. No-one knew what he wanted to do or what he was doing. He sanctioned these signings through Sanelleh.
“Look at the team we've got now.
“There's not one player we have bought apart from Gabriel Martinelli – a relatively cheap signing – who is worth any more than we paid for them.
“Look at all the rest, none of them are worth what we paid for them. You'd be lucky to get half of the cash back now in an open market.
“We didn't challenge the Champions League positions and we got into Europe because we won the FA Cup. Arsenal fans aren't stupid. They are looking at the team thinking: 'This isn't going to challenge the top four'.
“Unless things change with the owners and board we will be treading water for the next few years. I feel sorry for Mikel Arteta, having to unravel all this.
“It's going to take time. I can't see them getting back to the top – unless you've got a brilliant manager.
“Arteta might be that – there's been pluses and minuses so far. But he's got to be given time to make sense of this."
