Ivan Gazidis looks to have finally made up his mind to take the money and run for Milan, so who will Arsenal get to replace him?

Reading about this story on a daily basis for a couple of months, the lack of names linked with replacing Gazidis has been one of the standouts of the story. So far, the only person who seems to have been mentioned is Josh Kroenke.

Although Gazidis is required to give Arsenal 12 months notice The Times reported that Arsenal would ‘almost certainly put Gazidis on gardening leave should he choose to leave to join a European rival despite the fact that he has a 12-month notice period in his contract.’

‘Gardening leave’ is essentially a suspension on full pay for the duration of any notice period and is deployed to stop an employee from accessing confidential and sensitive information.

At present, there is nothing to stop Gazidis accessing whatever data he wants before making his decision and Arsenal have allowed him full access while he ponders his life.

Regardless of all that, Arsenal will need to find a replacement pretty quickly with many suggesting that it was more David Gill’s departure from Manchester United than Sir Alex Ferguson’s that caused them such instability.

“If you make an appointment of that size it’s going to mean a lot of things for a club like Arsenal,” expert in executive recruitment, Ryan Hill told football.london. “At that level, those individuals are responsible for setting mission, vision, values, and milestones. It’s an incredibly important part of the business.”

He was then asked how long it might take to recruit a new CEO. “Typically, three to four months. It depends if they’ve already started the process.

“If Arsenal are looking, they will be scouring the market and the board of directors will be getting together to ask who else might want to take it on. It could be someone internally who steps up. If not, they will have to look externally.

“It would take six to 10 weeks to shortlist candidates for this kind of role and another four to six weeks to close in one someone who could be brought into the business. Then there’s negotiations.

“I doubt it’s going to be a quick turnaround. If it is quick, my inclination will be that they have been working on this in the background for some time.

“From my professional perspective, it’s going to be very difficult to find somebody who can align to the culture at Arsenal, because it’s changing. They’ve gone from the culture of Arsene Wenger for more than two decades to something new, and you’ve got to get that culture right in the boardroom.”

The truth is, like with Unai Emery, reporters seem to have little clue what is going on behind the scenes at Arsenal. In fact, they know so little most aren’t even trying to speculate about who could replace Gazidis despite speculation being the stock in trade for many.

Gazidis has kept his own counsel despite constant reports that he will leave to become CEO under the guidance of AC Milan’s new owner, and friend of Gazidis’, Paul Singer and Elliott Management.

His silence, however, has spoke volumes all summer.