Tony Adams praised Mikel Arteta this week but insisted the problem at Arsenal is their recruitment, not their coaching.

Mikel Arteta took over as Arsenal head coach in December, and Tony Adams thinks the 37-year-old is doing a good job so far. He adds that it won’t matter if the club don’t change their recruitment though.

Speaking this week, Adams told Sky Sports he’s glad to see Arteta on the mend, following his infection with coronavirus. But whether it’s Arteta or Emery, the problem at Arsenal goes deeper than coaching.

“He is doing a great job,” Adams said. “I really like the man and his enthusiasm. I’m glad he is well and recovered from the virus. I have been speaking for the last 10 years about recruitment at the club and I think that really needs to up its game.

“The coach is irrelevant. (Unai) Emery was a fantastic coach but recruitment let him down. If you get that right then the coach has a chance.”

To be fair, Arsenal are putting in a lot of effort on that front. They’ve made major changes behind the scenes, bringing in a new head of football and a technical director and restructuring their scouting department, and so on.

They also invested heavily last summer, getting creative to complete big deals for the likes of Nicolas Pepe. The Kieran Tierney saga may have lasted all summer, but they got it done. £6m for Gabriel Martinelli was clearly an excellent piece of business.

At the same time, until those players start pushing Arsenal up the table, it’s hard to come up with a substantive argument that everything is just fine with their recruitment.