http://m.portadelaidefc.com.au/news/2017-06-19/burgess-bound-for-arsenal

PORT ADELAIDE has agreed to release head of high performance Darren Burgess to English Premier League club Arsenal.
The terms agreed between Port and Arsenal will see Burgess continue to fulfil his duties to Port Adelaide for the remainder of the 2017 AFL season and the start of the 2018 pre-season.

Burgess, who was handpicked by Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger, will commence his new role in July.

Under the transition terms agreed between Port Adelaide and Arsenal, Burgess will:

  • Return to Alberton in late July to continue to supervise the club's high performance program for the end of the home and away season

  • Should Port Adelaide take part in the AFL finals series, return to Alberton for the entire duration of the finals campaign

  • Return to Alberton in both October and November to plan and implement Port Adelaide’s 2017/18 pre-season program

  • At that time hand over to a successor whose international search and recruitment process will be led by Burgess

  • Undertake daily remote consultation with Port Adelaide’s high performance team and football program, including coach Ken Hinkley, for the duration of this transition period

  • Remain an integral part in Port Adelaide’s China high performance program

Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas said Burgess went to Arsenal with the club's blessing, and with integrity around Port's high performance program remaining.

"We acknowledge that this is a life changing opportunity for Darren," said Mr Thomas.

"But what we've been able to do is work with Arsenal to enact a transition process which limits any impact or disruption to our football program for this year, and retain Darren's expertise for our 2018 planning.

"We are appreciative of Arsenal's understanding that the integrity of our football program is the absolute priority for our club."

Keith Thomas thanked Burgess for his contribution to Port Adelaide, which has seen it develop an industry and nation-leading high performance program in the years since 2013.

"When we set out to rebuild our program we committed to being a global best practice sports organisation. To have a club like Arsenal hand pick Darren is testament to the calibre of our personnel, our football program and ultimately our organisation," Mr Thomas said.

"It also further underlines the impact and influence Port Adelaide is having on the international sports stage, from our success in China, to being named as one of Sports International's top 20 sports innovators globally.

Global partnership beckons
Further to recent developments in the global partnership space, Port Adelaide will pursue an arrangement with Arsenal - one of the UK's biggest football clubs - to grow sports science and professional development opportunties between Highbury and Alberton.

"Arsenal have indicated their desire to be part of a new collaborative partnership with Port Adelaide in a range of areas including sports science, professional development and international growth. That brings some amazing opportunities with it and we look forward to putting that arrangement in place as soon as we can," said Mr Thomas.

"It’s part of our ongoing journey and desire to becoming a world class sports organisation".

Mr Thomas will meet with Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis in Australia in July to finalise Port Adelaide’s international partnership with Arsenal.

Burgess thanks Port
Darren Burgess extended his thanks to Port Adelaide and its supporter base in the club's Monday media announcement:

“Reaching this decision has been one of the toughest decisions in my professional career”, said Mr Burgess.

“My family loves the lifestyle of Adelaide and more importantly we love everything about the Port Adelaide Football Club.

“When the opportunity came up to return to Port Adelaide I had no hesitation in returning. Port Adelaide is like family and once you’ve worked in this environment with so many outstanding people it is very difficult to leave.

“It’s especially difficult knowing the club is on the right path for sustained success both on and off the field.

“However, the opportunity to return to the English Premier League and work at one of the world’s most successful sporting organisations in Arsenal is an opportunity I simply couldn’t refuse.

“I look forward to continue having a relationship with Port Adelaide from afar and thank the entire club for their support and many great memories over two stints.”

Burgess has also previously worked for Liverpool - under Dalglish, Hodgson and Rodgers - and the Australian national team. Read around a bit and he seems to be very well respected. Port Adelaide are known for their great fitness levels in the AFL and in particular their relentless running ability, so it'll be interesting to see what changes here. 

Hopefully our resident Aussies have some good things to say about him.

I'm glad to read he's joining Shad rather than replacing him. Our injury situation seems to be a lot better these days and this can only help.

Hopefully there's more 'restructuring' to come, particularly in the scouting and recruiting department.

From the Telegraph

The highly-rated Burgess will report directly to Wenger but is expected to be given a wide-ranging brief to include overall control of medical, fitness, psychology and performance analysis at the club, as well as working with the academy.

In fact, it appears that Burgess’ planned role encompasses everything apart from player recruitment and scouting, and is a sign that Wenger has won his battle to ensure Arsenal did not appoint a director of football.

Seems Burgess is going to have quite a wide ranging involvement.

Despite what that second paragraph says, I reckon the club's plan has always been to appoint one or two guys that each oversee a number of connected departments within the club. I'd imagine someone else will come in to take over from Dick Law in an expanded role that also incorporates scouting, player recruitment and retention, whilst Wenger will remain responsible for the "technical performance" as he puts it.

Hand picked by Wenger.

So just another yes man, but I'm sure Gazidis will see this as radical change.

He's very highly regarded. It can't be seen as anything but a good thing. Anwyay, there has also been another appointment of guy with a big reputation;

[Twitter]

And a link to a Telegraph article with more details:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/06/19/arsenal-backroom-shuffle-continues-signing-new-legal-expert/

It seems Fahmy is the man that will take over from Dick Law in negotiating contracts for new and existing players.

Fahmy and Burgess will have no involvement in the identification of players at Arsenal and it is understood that there is likely to be at least one more significant off-field appointment this summer.

With one more significant off-field appointment to come it would appear.

That's a shame, when I read he's from Team Sky I thought we were finally going to catch up with everyone else and start doping.

Ray wrote:

Hand picked by Wenger.

So just another yes man, but I'm sure Gazidis will see this as radical change.

He's a fucking fitness coach. 😆

What an appointment. Exactly what we have been crying out for all these years.

So bloody excited I can't contain myself.

Qwiss! wrote:
Ray wrote:

Hand picked by Wenger.

So just another yes man, but I'm sure Gazidis will see this as radical change.

He's a fucking fitness coach. 😆

In other words, the guy every fan is going to abuse when our players get injured again. 😆

Pires, 43, who has been linked with a role as sporting director, is aware of the calibre of player the Gunners require to sign and already has a personal shortlist.

“I have a long list. Mbappe, Alexandre Lacazette, Ousmane Dembele, Thomas Lemar - this is my list, be careful. I’m not the manager but I believe in Arsene Wenger for the new season and to spend a lot of money on players. He knows the market is very difficult this summer and he has a lot of work to do but I’m confident," he said at Arsenal’s Puma home kit launch event in Kings Cross.

That's a great list.

Just let Pires negotiate, he can't be any worse than whoever is doing it now.

I don't give Pires any special credit for that list as it is obvious to anyone not called Gilles Grimandi, Luis Boa Morte, Daniel Karbassiyoon, Dick Law and Arsene Wenger.

Some unbelievably demented, tin-foil hat logic from Le Grove, as usual. Don't even know how you can genuinely perform the mental gymnastics it takes to get worked about about this! Egregious abuse of power? Arsenal isn't a bloody nation-state! 

He should have gone, but he's stayed. That's all. There is no Arsenal Fan's Bill of Rights. 

Le Grove is a muddled blog that sometimes comes out with great pieces but also just as often comes up with tripe like that.

some of our players performed like they were high last season. hopefully he can sort that issue out

12 days later

[Twitter]

Would be both surprised and delighted if old Jens Lehmann came back as a coach. He's as outspoken as he is nuts. It would be a hard one for the 'Wenger only works with yes men' crowd to rationalise that's for sure.

Really hope it happens.

Lehmann would be a brilliant appointment. He will give the players a kick up their arse.

And he is very good at his judgement of players anyway.

Edit - Telegraph have it too, with full details:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/07/03/arsenal-close-appointing-jens-lehmann-first-team-coach-work1/

Arsenal are finalising the highest-profile addition to their backroom team so far this summer with the appointment of their ‘Invincible’ goalkeeper Jens Lehmann as a first-team coach.

Significantly, Lehmann will be tasked with working directly alongside manager Arsene Wenger, assistant manager Steve Bould and first-team coach Boro Primorac with the club’s senior players.

Gerry Peyton will remain goalkeeping coach - a position he has had since Lehmann joined as a player in 2003 - with Lehmann himself due to take up a role across the entire squad.
...
This is his first formal coaching position, with Wenger and chief executive Ivan Gazidis confident that just his presence will positively influence the squad and help to reinforce a stronger, winning mentality.

Absolutely fantastic. There are few former players I'd have wanted ahead of him in a role like this. He's a out and out winner and very demanding and also very opinionated. Chuffed.

Bet he either quits very soon or becomes another silent zombie under the Wenger regime.

Would be glad to see Jens joined. Even though he sometimes came across as a bit of a nut job when he played, when you hear him speak he clearly knows what he is talking about.

Coombs wrote:

Some unbelievably demented, tin-foil hat logic from Le Grove, as usual. Don't even know how you can genuinely perform the mental gymnastics it takes to get worked about about this! Egregious abuse of power? Arsenal isn't a bloody nation-state! 

He should have gone, but he's stayed. That's all. There is no Arsenal Fan's Bill of Rights. 

LeGrove just can't take it that despite all his blogs and tweets the Arsenal hierarchy still gave Wenger a new contract 😆

He talks absolute shit as well, pretty sure he talked hoping we'd do bad to force Wenger out. He dislikes Wenger more than he supports Arsenal, deluded.

I <3 Jens.

People will look at this as embarrassing, but I reckon it was the single greatest moment of the Wenger reign.

goon wrote:

I <3 Jens.

People will look at this as embarrassing, but I reckon it was the single greatest moment of the Wenger reign.

Keown has mention on TV how Jens was the strictest in training. If anyone wasn't giving 100% he was on their case straight away no matter who it was. Apparently he was on hlebs case all the time.

He used to scare Almunia 😆

‘To have someone here who hates me is just amazing. I know he hates me.’

They eventually made up though

In his last season at Arsenal there was a team dinner for us all to say goodbye. Jens and me didn’t speak — and I mean never — but he came to me with his wife and showed me a totally different face. I thought, ‘oh my God, who is this? This is not Jens!’ We talked about life, football, Spain, Germany, everything.

interesting appointment. jens is a known feather-ruffler. doesn't seem like the type to stand for being neutered by wenger

More like a feather plucker if this is anything to go by:

They talk about Sanchez being a big player — but if you are sulking, you can’t be a big player.

“You must be a big player mentally — not just be good at dribbling.

“There’s always a question with Ozil — how much can he contribute when it gets tough?

“It’s not Mustafi’s fault someone has paid £35m for him. If someone buys me for £35m, the next day I’m not a better player.

“He is giving everything. But sometimes the team concede five, so he has to ask himself if it’s good enough?”

He said: “All these guys when they came to Arsenal were happy to join. They should not forget that.

“They can’t just turn around and say, ‘The manager is c**p — it’s his responsibility’.

“That’s not possible if you have character. They’re good players, they have character — but they need to show it!

“I haven’t seen Arsene criticise them. It’s payback.

ZzZzZzzzzZzz

Can't even understand the logic behind this. Is it supposed to be that Wenger needs to appoint his own "bad cop"?

Yeah and what would a keeper know about coaching actual footballers anyway?

🙂

Some of you might view Lehmann being around the players on the training ground and in the changing room before, during and after a game as unimportant, but I think it's because you'll see the bad in anything as long as Wenger is the guy calling the shots.

He's exactly the type of man we need more of at the club.

As much as people have disapproved about Wenger staying on this summer there has definitely been a significant change towards a fair few things. LB sorted and striker announcement imminent. Working on a deal for Lemar and if that doesn't work a backup option in place in Mahrez. Going all out to sign Mbappe even though it doesn't look like we will get that done. From the sounds of things close to agreeing a deal with Ozil and Alexis looks like he will stay. Off the field as well new man to look at contracts, new fitness coach in and Jens as a new coach.

In Arsenal terms this is all unheard of, lets hope we keep our finger on the pulse as far as new players go and get in hopefully another couple players.

flobaba wrote:

Bet he either quits very soon or becomes another silent zombie under the Wenger regime.

Can't see the latter happening, he's too mental to become a zombie.

Love mad Jens!

This is my favourite Lehmann moment (Wigan or Kirkland in particular had been wasting time from literally minute 1! It was a frustrating match but we finally took the lead late in the game and Lehmann decided to give them a taste of their own medicine)


😆 😆 😆

I love how it completely flies over the heads of the commentators who take it at face value.