The Arsenal sporting director, Edu, is to leave the club and looks likely to join the network of clubs spearheaded by Evangelos Marinakis, the owner of Nottingham Forest.

Edu’s shock departure will bring to an end five years in Arsenal’s senior management and means Mikel Arteta will lose one of his major allies. The pair enjoy a strong relationship and Arsenal will need to recalibrate when the Brazilian moves on. The timescale of his departure remains unclear.

Arsenal have become title challengers since their former midfielder rejoined the club, initially as technical director, in July 2019. He was heavily involved in Arteta’s arrival five months later and grew in influence after Raul Sanllehi, their head of football, departed in August 2020. Despite hits and misses early in his tenure, Edu has become regarded as integral to an aggressive, effective transfer policy that saw the likes of Martin Ødegaard, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhães, Gabriel Jesus and Declan Rice arrive to transform the profile of Arsenal’s squad.

There have been frustrations in more recent windows – the lack of genuine backups to Ødegaard or Bukayo Saka and a continuing uncertainty over their centre-forward position the primary issues – although there is no indication that this is responsible for Edu’s imminent departure. His bonds with key members of Arsenal’s hierarchy are understood to extend beyond the friendship with Arteta. Arsenal are fifth in the Premier League after a patchy, injury-struck start to the season in which they have rarely recaptured their free-flowing best form of the Arteta era.

Now Edu is being lined up to take a senior role in Marinakis’ group, potentially in a position involving recruitment oversight. Forest, Olympiakos and the Portuguese side Rio Ave are the three clubs currently under the 57-year-old’s control.

Edu was director of football at Corinthians after ending his playing career and, before returning to Arsenal, had been team coordinator for Brazil’s national team. The 46-year-old’s lack of experience at the sharp end of European football administration had appeared a concern at the outset but he is now poised for a new challenge working for the ambitious and controversial Marinakis, whose Forest team have been the season’s surprise package and currently sit third in the top flight.

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