Arsenal legend Tony Adams believes the failure to replace experienced players like Aaron Ramsey, Laurent Koscielny and Petr Cech has been a key reason why the Gunners have struggled so badly this season.

The London club appointed former player Edu as technical director in July and Adams feels the Brazilian must take his fair share of responsibility for failing to build a decent squad:

“I do question Edu. I don’t think he’s had the experience of building European squads and I said very early, at the beginning of the season they took Ramsey, Koscielny and Petr Cech out of his team and gave him Luiz.”

“You kind of going ‘hmm’. If I was the coach at that moment in time I’m going to go: ‘No, actually I want Ramsey’. If you’re going to build any lasting, victorious football club you need your best players.”

“You can’t sell your best players, you need to keep them and work with them. So yeah it’s big problems as I see with recruitment at the moment and it’s been there for a little while now.”

It must be pointed out that the decision to let Ramsey go came before Edu was appointed, while Bernd Leno had already established as number one ahead of Cech before the veteran keeper’s departure.

Even so, Adams does make a key point about squad building. The team that head coach Mikel Arteta has inherited is full of weaknesses that should have been rectified last summer.

For that reason, this summer’s recruitment strategy must be spot on in order to repair the damage done over the past few years. Whether Edu is the right man to make the decisions, we shall have to wait and see.