Jens Lehmann has slammed the decision to hire Unai Emery as coach of Arsenal Football Club.
The German was one of the people to lose their jobs following the arrival of Emery as new coach, and his departure may well have been the most significant.
Lehmann certainly believes his knowledge about the club as well as his knowledge of English football could have helped Emery, but instead he opted to replace him with people who ‘couldn’t even speak English’.
“I was there as an assistant coach two years ago but then Arsene has left and they have changed the whole managerial team and I think they made a mistake by choosing the wrong guys,” Lehmann told Stadium Astro.
“The people at the top sometimes don’t know what I know about football and they didn’t experience how to win things. So it’s not easy for them.
“I think he wanted to bring his own staff who couldn’t even speak English.
“Then a guy like me, who was a player for them, I think he just didn’t want us.
“I think it was a big present to him that he was picked as a manager for Arsenal because I think he was not good enough because he had this lingual problem.
“He may have some good ideas in Spanish but he never came across as being transferable to English football.”
The Spanish boss was sacked after 18 months in charge of the club, and we have since hired former Arsenal captain Mikel Arteta in his place, and the team is already showing improvements in a short space in time.
Arteta looks to have an amazing way with the players, and obviously has much knowledge on the Premier League and specifically Arsenal from his time as a player, and should get Lehmann’s approval on those grounds.
Were the Arsenal board naive to bring Emery in with his own team?
Patrick
I actually think Emery was a decent appointment at the time. He had done great things on small budgets, and I think only Pep had won more trophies in the 5 previous years.
Obviously it didn’t work out, but Emery did get us to our first European final in 13 years, which is something of note.
Yeah, got us to a final that you are still relishing today. A final dominated by Olivier Giroud, the strong player much despised by fans here, like you, who had called him all sort of unfortunate words.
Your highly revered coach did not have answer to Giroud, our former star, that someone talking dull things, who had never scored in a finals game, said would not win Arsenal something.
What? “Your highly revered coach”, I am not sure where you are getting that from? Giroud was right to be criticized. Never scored more than 16 league goals in a single campaign, and went something like 20 games straight without a goal!
Maybe Emery would have done better if Wenger hadn’t left the squad in an absolute mess. Emery inherited the worst Arsenal squad in over 35 years!
Jens was the one who was not good for Arsenal. He made too many mistakes