Unai Emery has praised his successor at Arsenal, Mikel Arteta for making his mark as their latest manager.
Arteta was made the boss after they fired Emery following a poor start to last season.
He won the FA Cup and Community Shield within the first few months of his time at the helm.
Emery led the team to the final of the Europa League in 2019, but he didn’t win a trophy for them in 18 months.
The former PSG boss is the new manager of Villarreal and he has led them to the semi-final of the Europa League.
They will face Arsenal in the first leg this Thursday and Emery was speaking ahead of the encounter.
He said the relationship between Arteta and the club is a good one considering that he played for them and is loved by the fans.
He also praised his compatriot for helping Arsenal return to their old way of playing under Arsene Wenger.
‘Arteta is putting his own stamp on things – in the way they play, it’s easy to identify he’s bringing back that Arsenal tradition of playing attractive football,’ Emery said via Mail Sport.
‘His first steps as Pep Guardiola’s assistant have helped him to position himself in this new profession which is being the manager.
‘Now he has been given this opportunity at Arsenal, and I think it’s a good place to develop because he is much loved by Arsenal thanks to the time he spent in the team.
‘He had his time [playing] there with Arsene Wenger so I’m sure he can apply everything he learned. I think it’s a good marriage: Arteta-Arsenal, Arsenal-Arteta.’
Is he being sarcastic.
Surely he is making jest of us. He was fired even when his arsenal team was doing better than this present team. Hopefully we will beat him and prove we made a better choice appointing Mikel even though both him and Mikel are equally bad choices.
Managers always compliment the opposing manager.
It’s what they do to make the other team the favourite while seeking underdog status.
It’s trying to give the opponent a false sense of security.
Arteta will say Emery is the master of EL football and will imply that Emery is seeking revenge which Emery will vehemently deny.
Managers never criticize another manager or team before the game as that just gives the other manager reasons to motivate his own team.
It’s what managers do.
The war of words the mind games have begun
Except for Mourinho on Wenger.
And others.
One may argue that Unai Emery has been generous in his comments regarding Arsenal and Mikel Arteta. Even his sternest critics have rarely, if ever questioned Emery’s “class”. What was he expected to do, rubbish the Club, its management, the players, supporters and particularly his successor?
Emery has moved on and has applied himself to making Villarreal successful.
Should he win on Thursday against Arsenal, it will a job done for him. Would you expect him to gloat; I believe not in public. Should he lose, I would expect he would accept it, analyse the reasons why and move on.
There is no doubt Emery will have Villarreal up for the two legs, so Arteta and Arsenal will have to turn up with their “A game” to ensure they go through to the final.
He must be taking the p1ss surely ,”playing attractive football “🤔😂
Ozzie, the way you always defend Emery and even came to Arsenal blog to celebrate Villarreal victory some weeks ago,tell me who you will really support on Thursday night….deep down in your heart,Am very sure you want Emery to win. so that you can prove yourself right.
Dunchirado, NO; if you check back on ever post I have ever made, you will never find one where I have wanted Arsenal to lose a game. I will take no comfort should Villarreal beat Arsenal to progress to the Europa League final. I would love Arsenal to win and hopefully go on and beat whoever for the Europa League.
You are wrong, I want Arsenal to win, whether it proves me right or wrong. MY OPINION, and others may agree or disagree, is that Emery was hard done by at Arsenal, but he was well remunerated and moved on.
By the way was there anything I said about Emery above, that you disagree with?
Back when in time of Ozil debates, Ozziegunner was one of the vocal ones in support of his exclusion in the team. The reason he gave was that Arteta can choose what players he want because in the end he will be the one judged by how the team perform.
In that time I believed he just didn’t like Ozil and was using Arteta as an excuse for his dislike of Ozil. But he has go on to judge Arteta based on results and prove I was wrong in my thinking about him.
Personally I don’t think he defend Unai per se rather that seeing how the club has stood by Arteta against players power (with worse results) why didn’t they stood by Emery?
Arteta (with worse results in history) has support from every corner: from the club, some of the fans, the players if we are to believe that (personally I doubt it) and even the media has spared him (how did that happen? ) while Emery was alone with no one supporting him (with better results).
That is what I have understood from OG posts regarding Emery.
Regarding him wanting the team to lose to be proven right I don’t think based on his comments (when you read someone comments regularly you get the picture of their way of thinking) he is that kind of a fan. Even though some of the things he has posted in the past I strongly disagree with, he is one the regular commenters with solid views and usually his comments have thoughts put into them.
You have followed me well HH. We can always agree or disagree depending on our “opinions” at the time; it should never get personal, although I find I do get annoyed at times. 😊
You really got it wrong about Ozziegunner
I remember we both had an altercation about this same Emery a year back and I even questioned his loyalty to Arsenal before I realized, what he wants for all coaches his same and not been good to one coach and neglect the other.
Emery received no back while Arteta does, more reason for his backing of Emery me think.