Per Mertesacker is set to end an eight-year spell with Arsenal at the end of this season, the club have now confirmed.
Arsenal have officially announced that club academy manager Per Mertesacker will leave his role at the end of the 2025/26 campaign, with the statement reading very much like it was the 41-year-old’s decision.
“Arsenal is and will always be a very special club to me, so this was a difficult decision,” Mertesacker told the club website. “I am very thankful for the trust the club put in me when transitioning from a first-team player directly into the role as Head of Academy.
“Now it is time for me to move on and explore something new and push myself even further.
“I remain focused on finishing the season strongly, continuing to nurture and develop our young talent and support a seamless transition until my very last day with the club.”
Arsenal CEO Richard Garlick added: “We support Per’s decision to pursue something new, but we will be incredibly sad to see him leave at the end of the season.
“We were fortunate to have retained Per as Academy Manager once he finished his playing career with us in 2018.
“He understands what Arsenal stands for and this has been a constant in his leadership – inspiring our Academy coaches, staff and young players in an Arsenal way and giving so many an opportunity to develop and shine.
“We’re happy that Per remains in role until the end of the season whilst we focus on our succession plan.”
Arsenal have had a strong spell of academy promotions under Mertesacker, with the likes of Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Max Dowman, and Marli Salmon stepping up.
Salmon signed for the club during Mertesacker’s time in charge, as did highly-rated future talent Kyran Thompson, and incoming signing Victor Ozhianvuna, among others. Then many others renewed their contracts and signed professional terms thanks to the former Germany international.
Mertesacker is also a strong representative of the club, speaking well in his public appearances and putting a lot of focus on developing Arsenal’s young players as people, as well as footballers.
At the same time, Arsenal’s academy hasn’t been in an entirely positive state over the last few years.
Whilst the stars of the academy have hit very high heights, there’s a steep drop-off to the rest of the squad, with mixed youth team results, consistently underwhelming loans, and many cases where players simply languish until their deals end.
The likes of Manchester City and Chelsea get academy players breaking into the first team on occasion, but they also sell their next tier of talent for decent fees.
Arsenal aren’t getting those fees because players generally either make it into Mikel Arteta’s team or get released for free (or neglible training compensation fees) to join much weaker leagues.
That’s not a negotiating problem. Arsenal can’t sell their young players if there’s little interest in them from any top teams. The issue is that the Gunners seem to produce one or two top players in each age group and then the rest are almost forgotten.
Mertesacker may not have been entirely responsible for that, but he was the man in charge of the operation for almost a decade. So if there’s one positive of his departure, it’s the hope that his replacement will help Arsenal to get more out of the players who don’t make the grade for Arteta.