Everything that looked wrong at Arsenal WAS wrong...and that includes Emery
HE DID not get the players he wanted, the support he wanted from the board, Mesut Ozil turned up when he felt like it, Aaron Ramsey shouldn’t have been allowed to leave and the players, even the famous captaincy group, were often mentally weak.
Unai Emery’s first interview since leaving Arsenal contrived to be absolutely fascinating, yet wholly predictable.
The words were compelling because they came from the man who was at the eye of the storm. Yet what he said, the problems he identified, the mistakes that were made, had all been detailed in real time.
Everything it was said Arsenal were getting wrong, Arsenal got wrong. Emery confirmed it all.
Poor player recruitment? Tick. Dilettante stars? Tick. Feeble management? Tick. Mistake after mistake after mistake? Tick and tick and tick.
It has been that way for too many years now. Arsene Wenger was a manager who used to prove his critics wrong, but over time became a man who proved them right. Where once he made signings that were doubted, only to confound expectations, recruitment became a constant issue.
The faith he showed in players such as Emmanuel Petit, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry was entirely justified; similar conviction in the qualities of Calum Chambers, Lucas Perez, Gabriel and Shkodran Mustafi was not.
And perhaps because Wenger had exerted such influence without repeating the success of his early years, when Emery arrived he found his signings vetoed by committee.
So he wanted Wilfried Zaha, but ended up with Nicolas Pepe because he was three years younger. Yet what does age matter, unless the club has one eye on a resale? That is the biggest problem for any Arsenal manager in the Stan Kroenke era. This is a selling club now. It solves the problems of its rivals, whether Juventus, Manchester United or Manchester City.
Everything that looked wrong with Arsenal from the outside turned out to be wrong on the inside, too.
And, yes, that included Emery. His rationalisation of the captaincy group in lieu of a real captain did not reflect well. Neither did his admission that Granit Xhaka’s eventual promotion was half his decision, half that of the players, a squad he admitted could lack application and commitment. So why were they decision-makers?
Nobody has forged a closer bond with his team than Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.
One imagines, however, that he doesn’t put too many big calls to the vote. Yet again, this is nothing that wasn’t said at the time.
After losing heavily in the Europa League final to Chelsea last season, Emery (right) booked individual meetings with his players for the following day. Ozil did not bother to show. Why does that not surprise? What is it about a sciolistic player, whose £350,000-a-week new contract was agreed without consulting the incoming manager, that suggests he might be less than engaged?
The worry for Arsenal is that so many of the problems revisited with Emery remain unresolved even now. When football restarts, will Ozil have changed; will Ramsey have been adequately replaced; will Pepe be the matchwinner that might be expected for £72million?
For years we have heard that Arsenal are a club that is run properly. That it has not bought success like interlopers such as Chelsea and Manchester City.
Yet when the 2019-20 campaign was suspended, the Kroenke business plan turned out to be built on thinner ice than most.
Arsenal have greatest need for matchday revenue — and their best players are angling to leave. Again. They may get that wish, too. Arsenal might generate more money than all but 10 clubs worldwide, but Kroenke’s model is self-sustainability.
It is why pay cuts and deferrals at the club included clauses covering a return to the Champions League next season.
Three consecutive campaigns outside the competition have hit finances hard and Arsenal reported a £27.1m loss in February this year.
Already out of the Europa League after a disastrous home defeat by Olympiacos, Arsenal’s only hope of returning to Europe’s marquee competition is to make up eight points on Chelsea, albeit with a game in hand, and hope the four teams separating them also stumble. Optimistic, then, at best. Fail again, and the gap between Arsenal and the rest of the elite widens once
more. Despite the
arrival of Mikel Arteta and shoots of recovery, Pierre- Emerick Aubameyang has been making eyes at Real Madrid throughout lockdown, while this week Lucas Torreira’s agent announced his client would ‘love’ a return to Italy, having left Sampdoria two summers ago.
AC Milan and Napoli are believed to be the clubs turning his head.
NO OTHER major Premier League concern encounters this problem as regularly as Arsenal and once a club gets a reputation for selling, it becomes increasingly hard to lose.
Why might Aubameyang think he can get away? His people will have noted the career paths of former Arsenal players such as Alexis Sanchez, Robin van Persie, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ramsey. Most clubs have to sell in some circumstances, yet Arsenal consistently lose players to Premier League rivals, too.
Just because Sanchez’s move to Manchester United proved a dismal failure, does not make it a positive move for Arsenal?
They may have done well financially, but what message did it send to the rest of the squad, or the rest of football?
Arsenal become a stepping stone, not a destination. And Real Madrid think they can winkle out any player for a price. And, most probably, they would be right. The bad news bulletins were not a scurrilous invention.
‘It would have been better for the team if Ramsey had continued… Pepe needs time and patience, I favoured someone who knew the league and wouldn’t need to adapt… the club left me alone and there was no solution… some players had a mentality that said one day yes, and one day no…’
It was as if Emery was reading from a list of debates and discussions around his Arsenal tenure, or even the last years of Wenger’s time in charge. Will it be different for Arteta? Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.