As many as eight members of Arsenal’s recruitment staff are set to leave the club, according to reports.

The Telegraph report that head of youth scouting Steve Morrow is the highest-profile staff member to be dropped by the club, but he could be joined by as many as seven others. Dave Lee, Kevin Beadell, Dan Rice, Joe Sutton and Jay Leffe are all among those named.

There’s no clarification over who made the call to let them all go, but Football.London suggest Per Mertesacker might have had a part to play in the decision.

Mertesacker said recently: “The amount of staff we have in academies is, I’ve never seen anything like it. On one hand, it’s good to take care of the players but I don’t know, sometimes I get confused by the number of people who have an impact on one kid.

“We’re talking 100 people or more have an influence on one kid over years. It’s quite a heavy load.”

Perhaps Mertesacker and Arsenal are looking to streamline and simplify that process to make things easier for the players coming up through the academy. On the other hand, given all of the departing staff members seemed to have a recruitment role, it’s not clear how much time they would have actually spent with the players anyway.

For the record, the club are still yet to confirm those leaving, with the suggestion that Arsenal’s HR department are looking after the process at the moment.