According to The Athletic, Arsenal is close to appointing Italian scout Maurizio Micheli to a senior recruitment role.

The 57-year-old Micheli is currently the director of Naples' scouting department. He is well-known in the Italian football community and is regarded as one of the important promoters of the club's success in recent years.

Since joining the Premier League club in March this year, Arsenal sporting director Andrea Berta has been looking to expand the team he works closely with. The need became more pressing after the departure of former interim chief Jason Aitor in May, after Aitor failed to be formally appointed to the position following Edu's departure last November.

If the appointment goes ahead, Micheli will join a recruitment team that already promoted James Ellis to technical director this summer.

Berta joined Arsenal after working at Atletico Madrid for 12 years, during which he worked with Simeone. He initially joined Atletico Madrid's scouting department and was promoted to sporting director within 4 years. His first summer at Arsenal was very busy, and he successively introduced players such as Suvemendi, Eze, Yokeres, Madueke, Mosquera, Norgao, Kepa and Inkapiye.

Analyst James Horncastle believes that Micheli is one of the most outstanding scouts in Italy and has long been regarded as one of the key figures in Napoli's success.

Mikkeli's career began at Udinese, which was leading the way in player recruitment at the time. He discovered stars such as Asamoah and Muntari. Later at Brescia, Micheli discovered Hamsik, who became one of the best midfielders in Serie A generation. These transfers put Micheli on the radar of Napoli, who had regularly brought in players from Udinese.

After leaving Brescia, Hamsik became the captain of Naples and surpassed Maradona to become the top scorer in the club's history. No matter how Napoli's sporting directors changed, Micheli's cooperation with another scout, Leonardo Mantovani, always brought stable performance to the team.

Naples won the league championship again after 33 years, and Micheli's contribution can be seen everywhere. Reunited with coach Luciano Spalletti, whom he had worked with at Udinese, Micheli was put in charge of scouting Kim Min-jae and Kvaratzhelia, who was named Most Valuable Player in his first Serie A season.