Henrikh Mkhitaryan has compared the management of Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery and reveals that Wenger was unapologetically an attacking manager.
The Armenian spent one-and-a-half seasons at Arsenal having been signed by Wenger in January 2018.
The Frenchman brought him from Manchester United with Alexis Sanchez going the other way.
He was struggling for a playing time at United under Jose Mourinho and was expecting more playing time at Arsenal.
Wenger trusted him and gave him the freedom to play his game, but the Frenchman left six months after he was signed.
Emery didn’t like him that much and fielded other players ahead of him, which the Armenian says was ok, but he didn’t like to sit on the bench.
He reveals that Wenger was a more attacking manager who always believed that they just needed to outscore their opponents to win a game.
‘With Wenger, it was freedom, the freedom to move, to play with the ball. He always wanted to play with the ball,’ Mkhitaryan told the Athletic.
‘He never wanted to defend because he was always saying if we score more goals than the opponent we’re going to win the game. It was a pleasing time. Unfortunately, after six months he was sacked.
‘Then there was Emery, so a different approach to football, a different philosophy. It was quite hard for me because I wasn’t playing a lot of the time. Most of the time I was sitting on the bench and I never like sitting on the bench because throughout my career I always wanted to play and win something. Emery saw football differently and was relying on other players.’