Tomas Rosicky is reportedly a leading contender to succeed Edu Gaspar and become Arsenal's new sporting director. Edu left the Gunners in November after five years of service to join a multi-club model spearheaded by Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.

Now, though, with the Gunners seeking a full-time replacement for Edu, the Guardian claims Rosicky is a "leading contender" for the role and has been in "regular contact" with members of the club's hierarchy.

Rosicky made over 200 appearances for the Gunners after joining the club from Borussia Dortmund in 2006. After leaving the Emirates in 2016, Rosicky returned to boyhood club Sparta Prague and enjoyed one final season with the Czech side before retiring at the end of the 2016-17 campaign.

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Soon after retiring, Rosicky would join the off-field set-up at Sparta Prague as sporting director. During his tenure, the 44-year-old has overseen Sparta Prague's return to the Champions League for the first time since 2005.

However, the Guardian claims that if Rosicky were to take the role at the Emirates, it would be unlikely to be before the end of the season.

In the meantime, Jason Ayto, Edu's former deputy, has been assuming responsibilities at the Emirates and is expected to oversee the Gunners' activity in the January transfer window.

In November, football.london spoke to the chief sports writer for Seznam Zprávy, Martin Vait, who gave a glowing assessment of Rosicky's role at Sparta Prague.

“Tomáš Rosický has grown into his role slowly - at first he couldn't find the right coach and a balance between players,” he said. “He inherited an unmotivated and overpaid squad full of experienced players which was very hard to ship out.

“Sparta's scouting system didn't really seem up to scratch as Slavia were overrunning their opponent and chose better fits into their system of play, Sparta were lacking behind in fitness, and there were injury crises.

"He also seemed indecisive about the future of some of the key players and coaches - under his management Václav Jílek was sacked just one game into the spring season, after more than two months of preparation time that could have gone on with another coach.”

“His comments at the time were very general and vague and reports also varied whether he really made the top decisions himself and was fully behind the choice of one of their previous coaches. There is a lot more that was going on behind the scenes that he was having a hard time with but to make things brief it all got to a breaking point where he offered his resignation, which was rejected.”

He added: “Things got cleared up and he seemed to have a full control over the sporting side of the club afterwards. He chose better physically equipped players and crucially he chose Brian Priske with whom came a whole different culture to the club that Rosický fully supported and craved for a long time.

“His old mate Tomáš Sivok was also a crucial appointment as a sporting manager who worked as his extended hand into the dressing room and a support for the coaches, there was an incredible step up in terms of motivation among players, professionalism, analysis in terms of matches but also recruitment, and foremost in fitness thanks to Christian Clarup, their head of performance. Rosický also got a lot more articulate and forthcoming as he found his feet, he crucially showed support for Priske even if his start wasn't as good and then it was all building together.

“The blend of technical and physical ability that Sparta were able to produce was probably the highest from any Czech team in memory."