Fanatical work ethic fails to reap rewards

As crisis grows, Sam Dean reflects on why the search for a winning formula remains elusive

‘What I want most,” said Unai Emery, “is to hide for three days, for nobody to see me, for them to forget me.” The date was April 23, 2011, and Emery was speaking in the aftermath of what he described as the most “shameful” night of his managerial career.

Moments earlier, he had stood at the Mestalla, absorbing the furious jeers of the Valencia supporters as their team was humiliated 6-3 by Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid. They had been 5-0 down after 53 minutes and 6-1 down after an hour. Valencia’s late goals did nothing to diminish the fans’ anger.

Following Arsenal’s recent defeat by Leicester City, he returned to Spain to spend time with his mother, something he did in September, during the international break, which gave him the chance to briefly remove himself from the pressure building in north London.

Emery, evidently, is a man who sees great value in stepping back. The irony, then, is that his obsessive approach makes it so hard for him to do so. He cannot simply park his thoughts and return to them the next day.

“I go to bed thinking about tomorrow’s training session, a task we have to do or a conversation I have to have with a player, and the next morning I wake up thinking about that exact same task or conversation,” he told the journalist and author Marti Perarnau.

Emery is extremely self-critical. It almost goes without saying that, in recent weeks, there has been plenty for him to criticise and to analyse. The Spaniard was at his most self-reflective following Saturday’s abysmal 2-2 draw at home to Southampton, admitting, for the first time, that he is under-performing as a coach. His response, as always, is to work. There are plenty of aspects of his management that are open to question, but you will not find one person to question his work ethic.

Senior figures have spoken in amazement at his dedication, marvelling at how he had begun his post-game analysis of a Europa League match on the flight home.

“I need to work, I need to analyse, I need to find a solution,’’ Emery said after the Southampton draw. So far, the solution has proved beyond his reach. If anything, Arsenal are becoming worse and Emery is shuffling his team with such frequency, it is hard to keep track of all the changes to their shape.

He said in the summer that he planned to play with four at the back, but in recent weeks has tried a three-man defence. Against Southampton, he returned to a four-man defence at half-time, before changing the shape again later in the same half.

He wants his squad to be versatile, a commendable aim. For so long under Arsene Wenger, Arsenal were painfully predictable. But it is no surprise that some

players are baffled by the constant change of tactics, as reported by the Daily Telegraph this week. The sense now is that Emery is trying all possible variations, hoping something might stick.

Has he run out of ideas, or does he have too many? The result is the same, either way. Six games without a win in all competitions ahead of tonight’s Europa League tie with Eintracht Frankfurt, an increasingly mutinous fan base and a club hierarchy fast losing faith in the man hired to lead a great rebuilding project.

The current run of form will rank among Emery’s more gruelling moments. He will work to fix the problem, but he knows as well as anyone that the clock is ticking closer and closer to the end.