Arsenal are restructuring their youth scouting department after sacking Steve Morrow and a number of other scouts in November.

Steve Morrow (Photo via Standard.co.uk)
Steve Morrow (Photo via Standard.co.uk)

Training Ground Guru report that Lee Herron will lead the new youth scouting ‘Talent ID’ department at Arsenal.

The club sacked Steve Morrow from the old role – Head of Youth Scouting – in November. They also removed a number of other scouts from their positions at the same time. Edu and academy head Per Mertesacker felt the department needed a change.

Steve Brown, the Head of Coaching at MK Dons, and Yousuf Sajjad, who joined from Chelsea over the summer, will take on new roles as Lead Talent ID Co-ordinator and Emerging Talent Co-ordinator (u17s to u23s) respectively.

Previous stories about Joe Shields joining from Manchester City don’t appear to be true.

The Emerging Talent Co-ordinator role sounds particularly interesting. According to TGG, it’s a link between the Academy, loans and the first team.

Arsenal already have a loan manager, but having someone in charge of a more general overview of the success and failure of the club’s ability to bring players through from the u17 age group to the first team is important.

This is obviously the most crucial stage in development for the Arsenal academy. It’s all well and good developing an u18 team that can win the South Division title, but if that doesn’t translate to players hitting the first team in a few years, something is wrong.

This is Mertesacker’s first big move since taking over as academy manager. Time will tell if it’s the right one.