Watching the events from Villa Park on Wednesday was bittersweet.
Aston Villa were doing us a massive favour in the title race but equally left the impression we will have to raise our levels to also not drop points this weekend.
It supports Tony Adams’ argument that if Unai Emery had still been our boss, we would have become Champions last season.
Our former captain was trying to stress that Arteta lacked the experience to get us over the line in the run in.
It feels a betrayal to question a man who has a statue outside of the Emirates, but there’s zero guarantee that if the Kroenke Family had stuck with Emery, he would have turned us into contenders.
While I have never been shy to point out our current manager’s flaws and maintain we lack the mentality to lift the Prem, I understand the standard we now operate at, and the level required to finish above Man City.
The current regime have done a lot of good things for us to be having this conversation.
If Villa get to Sunday morning just a point behind us it will support the notion that Emery was simply unlucky to be hired directly after Mr Wenger. That in reality whoever replaced a legacy that lasted two decades was destined to struggle.
Yet never forget how dark the last few weeks of Emery’s tenure was. It wasn’t clear what our identity was, the likes of Palace, Saints and Wolves were getting results at our ground and the style of play was depressing.
Consistently it was the worse I saw Arsenal play in my lifetime.
Some of the media who got to witness parts of training the night before his final game leading the Gunners, couldn’t believe the body language of senior pros.
It’s not the Spaniard’s fault that he was still learning English, his employers knew who they were hiring.
Yet communication has been a key difference between Emery and Arteta.
Even though he was a rookie, from his very first press conference Arteta explained his ethos better then Emery had ever managed.
Our ex-skipper used buzz words, knowing what Gooners wanted to hear but he also sent a strong message to his squad.
At times he’s flat out lied but you have always sensed he believes in his principles.
After two 8th place finishes, the worst in quarter of a century, Arteta had a strong enough personality to sit down with Edu, BFG and Josh Kroenke to take part in an action plan to improve all areas of the club.
From a PR perspective our owners were pressured into listening after trying to become members of the Super League without consulting the fan base.
Emery either felt unable or unwilling to do the same, to sit down and address the problems that existed, which is the first part of finding any solution.
This isn’t to discredit his body of work, but Emery’s success has come at clubs where the expectation levels haven’t been high.
It’s no coincidence that he was sacked or walked away at the two biggest sides he coached, PSG and Arsenal.
That doesn’t take away lifting the Europa League with Sevilla and Villarreal but punching over your weight as an underdog where the attention is only in your city, can’t be compared to the responsibility of taking one of the biggest institutions in the UK back to the big time.
Villa are a big club with a proud history. Yet you can drop points at Bournemouth and it’s not a talking point.
Drop any points at Arsenal and the world scrutinise.
In sport skill gets you so fair. What separates the good from the great is mental strength.
Arsenal don’t have that but doing well in Birmingham doesn’t prove that Emery has that.
Arsenal and Villa are different jobs that take different skill set.
Ideally you would have Arteta’s charisma with Emery’s experience.
Maybe that’s what Adam’s was asking for in an ideal world?
If he keeps his ego under control, Arteta will get better every year, he gains new knowledge and learns things.
No matter the result on Saturday, I wouldn’t want Emery anywhere near North London again.
So, no Tony Adams, we wouldn’t have won the title under Unai Emery.
We wouldn’t even be in the equation.
Dan
Emery was hounded out by our own fans. We showed absolutely no patience toward him. I am not saying that he was the right guy or that he would have won the title for us. But the way our fans absolutely mocked, disparaged, disrespected and encouraged / egged on our own players to disrespect him was horrible.
Yes I felt bad for being one of those who called for Emery’s head after a poor run of results in his second season.
It may be a bit of a double standard when I called for more patience when Arteta had an even worse run a year later. Just glad I’m finally vindicated after his excellent work last season
No Chance
The beautiful thing with Emery which the article doesn’t point out is that he gets the best out of every player he has. This was the same Villa team that Steven Gerard had in the relegation zone last season. Let’s not even talk about Villarreal. How he managed to get us to the Europa League final with the likes of Sokratis, Mustafi, Lichsteiner, Monreal and Cech is baffling.
Yes, he was always doomed to fail. Arteta is probably the best for us at the moment. I also believe that if he had a fraction of the massive support (financially and power-wise) that Arteta has enjoyed, he would have been a success. It’s all hypothetical though
@dgr8xt
Realness…Many on here would not like to admit it, but you nailed it M8.
I wonder why the board even brought him in, if they knew they weren’t going to back him to the hilt. I see that as a raw deal from the start. A no win situation for him.
And to answer the question, without a doubt had he full backing and time, we’d have lifted the League cup by now.
I’ve got nothing against Mikel, he seems a decent enough dude. And by virtue of him being in the seat, I will back him. But in all honesty, I’m not fully convinced…Jus sayin
Emery is a great manager in his own right and should be respected for what he has achieved in the game.
However, we have no idea what would have become of Arsenal if he had stayed in place with the progressive decline that was evident.
He has done well at Aston Villa but there really is no good evidence that he could have built a side to challenge MC at Arsenal with where we were a couple of seasons ago.
Tony Adam’s comments were poorly considered and his reasoning is unsound. The comments were also disrespectful to Arteta and his team.
@David ready what @dgr8xt said he has explain everything better, Emery was not given a free hand has Arteta. Imagine Emery was glamouring for Zaha but the board bought him Pepe.
IMO at that time we would have been almost as likely to have been in a relegation fight as we would have been on a championship run. As far as last season is concerned, there’s no way of knowing whether Emery or anyone else could have somehow made the team that Arteta/Edu/Kroenke built win the PL.
@Bruised Banana
😂
Hi BB
Agree with you
I don’t care what Emery did before or since Arsenal. It’s all about what happened during his tenure which started really quite well and then went totally down the pan from the following spring until his sacking in the Autumn.
His English skills were poor and it must have been awful being mocked by all and sundry. He has put that right in his return to England with Villa.
I don’t think that in the time he spent at Arsenal that it made much of a difference that he was the coach and not the manager. Would the purchase of Zaha alone have got us back to the top4? Let’s not forget that with pretty much the same players Arteta won an FA Cup and if he had been promoted to manager by that time it wasn’t long enough to make a difference.
Like him or not, Arteta is a dynamic individual.
I did feel bad when he was being mocked and was not able to communicate the way he wanted and needed to. I can’t imagine the frustration.
I remember when Zaha was again being considered and he was apparently deemed to be too expensive and then we turned around and stunned everyone by that huge outlay (spread out) for Pepe. I have always rated Zaha highly but I tend to doubt if he would have been enough of a difference maker.
Even though it’s a bit of a toss up in a few cases I don’t believe that I would want any other current PL manager for Arsenal than MA. He has been given great support but has put it together and managed it very very well for most part IMO.
After winning the FA Cup, Arteta gave us our WORST EVER START in the Premier League, 15th place with 13 games played. Emery was sacked when we were 8th place with 13 games played, the year before.
Obviously, Arteta was given way more slack than Emery. So yes, I believe if given the same amount of time and leeway, Emery would have made us into title contenders
What you have failed to mention is that Emery was an established top manager as opposed to a newbie. You also failed to mention that he had lost the dressing room. Would that have magically changed? He came to Arsenal when they had just dropped out of the CL places. Arteta was faced with a much deeper crisis in his arrival.
Arteta has faced his challenges and he was lucky to be given support when it wasn’t always an easy watch but the Board would have expected better than what Emery dished up with all his experience and previous success. Maybe the right manager but at the wrong time in some people’s eyes, but not mine. By the time Arteta arrived we were in a much worse position than after Wenger left.
Spot on. The worst ever start stuff is so irrelevant. I for one expected/feared it at the time. Not that excuses are needed for simply losing the first three games of the season; but, newly promoted Brentford away, Chelsea (when they were very good with Lukaku still a beast), City away. Summer transfers not playing in the squad yet, etc. etc.
The opinions you provide in your second paragraph are incredibly insightful. We don’t always agree but you often bring something special to this site not many others do.
I just wish Freddie would have had an easier time coming in after Unai, lol.
Sorry, I was rude and didn’t return your greeting. Hi SueP
btw, while I’ve only been commenting for a short time, while reading posts for much longer, you have always seemed to be one of the more rational and also nonabrasive commenters.
Very kind of you BB
Long may you continue to contribute
But on the other hand. Has Emery got a history of being a title challenging manager? Getting Europa is his specialty, but there is no evidence to suggest he would have won us a title.
Arsenal had to many problem players for Emery to succeed….not bad footballers just bad/political attitudes. I dont think Emery had the ruthlessness to weed them out the way Arteta did.
@David
It’s not that Unai wasn’t ruthless, the board rendered him toothless. He was a “coach” remember. He wanted Saha and was given “Pepe”. He was stuck with the players he inherited and did the best in the situation he was thrust into by the boards lack of clarity as to his position and what it entailed…Jus sayin
I’m not sure I fully agree with your last sentence. Arteta had the ruthlessness because the board was fully behind him and we’re ready to replace any players he washed his hands off. You and I know Emery didn’t have such
I think not. We were a mess when he came in and while he is a very capable coach, he drowned in the chaos he inherited. Arteta and Edu have been dogmatic about the players out and in to the club. Tactically he sits at the top table without a doubt. We have quite a game ahead of us tomorrow.
Such a hypethetical question that really cannot be answered.
We don’t know the facts behind Unai’s contract, except that he was described as a coach – as was Mikel, until the “night of the long knives” began and Mikel was given so much more responsibility.
I’m just happy that UE is proving to be a success at Villa and this nonsense about them not being a big club is laughable – just look at their history.
We are going to have one hell of a battle this weekend and that’s all down to the way Unai has MANAGED the club…putting his stamp on it in exactly the same way that Mikel has done at The Arsenal.
I wouldn’t want to swap the two of them, but that’s because of what MA has achieved at The Arsenal and I hope we beat Villa… but it would be nice to see them finish in second PLACE, just below us, in the PL.
I don’t think Emery would have been capable to push man city to the extent Arteta did with that team last season.
Emery is a cup manager, I give that to him, but to assume he would have won the league with that team that 95 percent of the pundits predicted to finish around 6th or 7th is asking him for too much.
Poor old Unai was beaten by not speaking the language. By not being able to fully communicate. I do think he would have won trophies. Respect for what he is doing at Villa. They are de-facto title contenders, as we certainly are!
If Emery had been allowed to get rid of Aubamayang, Ozil and Lacazette, his time at Arsenal might have been a bit easier.
If his English had been better, he might then still be at the Emirates.
Unfortunately these issues he could not overcome!
He did take us to a Europa League final, which is more than Arteta has done.
But, we now have Arteta, and we have to live with and back him (despite some of his mistakes).
So go Arteta………
Maybe, but who had the patience, in that transition stage? Villa actually has a different weight, less and less stress. So he had plenty of time. It’s better for coaches like Emery it’s better to go to outsider teams without the stress of Champions League, let alone league. Besides, that’s why he succeeded in Sevilla. In any case, we didn’t give him time, you do He doesn’t have a magic wand. I think that the wrong handling, in an era where everything was going wrong, the coach issue was no way to be an exception. If he manages to make the surprise with Villa i it is in my opinion bigger than that of Leicester. But I don’t think so, they are already doing very well.
With his approach? No chance! I’m sure we are in for a game against a side now used to his style of play and philosophy quite unlike last season we beat them to get back on track, so whatever the score is after the final whistle is fine by me although his return to the Emirates won’t be of the red carpet type, more like stepping into the belly of a beast. Gonna be quite a day tomorrow.
One of the reasons I don’t like to get into the Unai vs Mikel debate is the same reason why I don’t get into automatic vs manual transmissions or combustion vs electric vehicles(being a mechanical engineer lol). It is all about what suits us at the moment in my opinion.
As mentioned by a lot of learned posters here above, with both for and against points about our ex boss, my reasoning is quite simple. In his time at Arsenal, the primary selling point of UE was his adaptability. His team reflected that kind of play, which many of us associated with counter-attacking. Now, maybe if given time enough it would have evolved into the perfect philosophy and would have been able to outdo most teams, but the way it was going was, to speak honestly, not pretty. If we jog our memories, we would see that MA started along the same route. But the key difference was that he was able to identify where to adapt and how to adapt. His defensive and counterattacking initially was purely focused for results against top teams, while normal play was a hit and miss. With UE we normally got an Arsenal which was 60% adaptable but somewhat incomplete. That is one key difference in my opinion. Then after that the phases came into play which we have multiple articles here so not going into them.
The second issue also being if we see UE’s body of work, honestly as mentioned above he hasn’t really lit it up with the traditionally described big teams (big global fanbases, regular competitive and trophy winning aspirations) while he has been blazing a trail with the traditionally described underdog teams….this comes with the question of scalability. Whether you want to scale up and expand with hiccups or ensure a perennially present focused stability. I felt the latter with UE. I was happy with his appointment because I am fan of Jose Mourinho and honestly, even though I adore Mr. Wenger, I always felt Jose was a SLIGHTLY (emphasis on the slightness of the slight) better manager in that he knew how to win ugly. I felt UE would bring that sort of stuff to the Emirates but sadly I was mistaken.
Thirdly, the support angle. Now, from a business standpoint, again it was the case of the outsider with quiet genius and fresh perspective vs the insider with charisma and pedigree. The ownership made the difficult decision of a continental model of management and UE had limited means, but contrary to what he has done after Arsenal, except a few cases he rarely got the best out of our players (case in point being our defense and midfield). We all say he was afforded limited support, but then was he able to work with what he had to the fullest? Not saying MA also did initially but you can’t argue against FA Cup vs a Europa final thrashing. This also brings into the point of language. We have Marcelo Bielsa using a translator to handle his speaking while he got a tune out of Leeds players, but UE (mad respect to him) got English lessons and faced the media hounds and the demotivated players alone. Maybe that was not a good move at all, considering the situation. Maybe he could have shown his ruthlessness more in the ambit of decisions he had control of (on field) to gradually garner more support from the board and also proactively communicate with the owners regarding his handicaps. I feel MA was clearer in this regard. This also brings about the point of vision. Maybe he was not able to ever fully sell his vision to the board thereby the lack of support in the first place, while the board just taking the best available stop-gap?
Finally, I would like to ask this. Would the trajectory of the project have been the same as it is now? There is always the thing about opportunity cost and logically as an experienced manager UE might have been a safer bet for success. But in the same vein, if the board had hired MA from the time AW stepped off, would we be in a better place? Is there also a question like this which can be asked? Frankly speaking I don’t really care about UE’s results at Sevilla, Villarreal and Villa as they are not like for like situations with each having their own unique set of challenges.
So, in conclusion, after racking my brains to form an opinion on the matter I feel presently MA is the best option for us and no UE wouldnt have put us in a similar stature.
Emery did a wonderful thing for this club. Showed how badly it was being run. I think any manager coming in after 21 years of Wenger was on to a hiding to nothing. To a bigger extent Utd are having a nightmare after the Fergi Era. There was nothing wrong with Emery, it was the club, which is a totally different animal now. From top to bottom.
Emery wasn’t getting anywhere and had to leave. In the end it wasn’t pretty either on the field and where we were sitting on the table. Like the rest of us football managers have these bad periods where they need to start again elsewhere. The best example is Clough after Leeds. At Arsenal the odds where stacked against him from day one. Imagine trying to organise a defence around the likes of Captain Kos.,and those two nut jobs Sokratis and Mustafi? The midfield was a hotch potch of an ineffective Ramsey, Prince Mesilt, the nowhere men Xhaka and Elneny, and an inexperienced hot head in Gandouzi. Then there were Auba ( what me sweat for a living?) and Lackofgoals Lacazett not to mention the Pepe scam. I think only an Italian manager could have organised that rable so kudos to Emery for almost taking us into Champions League in his first season. To his credit Emery picked himself up post Arsenal and has got on with things without making a fuss. Deep respect.