Unai Emery selects Mesut Ozil following intense pressure and STILL gets criticised.
No matter what Unai Emery does he is going to be criticised and that was no better illustrated than his decision to select Mesut Ozil against Wolves at the weekend.
A large section of the Arsenal fan base was calling for Ozil to be selected against Wolves but pundit Tony Cascariono branded it poor leadership.
Trying to appease the fans
‘It smacked of poor leadership,’ Cascarino told The Times as cited by the Metro. ‘If the Arsenal manager genuinely believed Ozil was the man to lift his faltering team, he would have used him more than twice in the Premier League this season.
‘Instead, his selection seemed motivated by a desire to appease the Arsenal fans. If Emery is to turn things around at the Emirates, he needs to do more than simply pick a fan favourite. ‘Arsenal are a side who will always offer an opening to their opponents. Wolves had 25 attempts to Arsenal’s ten on Saturday and it was only a matter of time before they equalised. ‘It was interesting hearing Emery say afterwards that his side had spurned the opportunity to score a second goal.
‘With this Arsenal team, there is no guarantee that going two goals ahead will put the game to bed. Emery’s priority must be to make this side more solid.’
I actually feel that Cascarino is right, I would never have picked Ozil and have said on many times. However, I accepted his decision and left it at that.
But it shows that whatever the Spaniard does he is going to be attacked by someone.
All managers, even Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp get criticised but generally speaking their decisions are accepted. That simply does not apply with Unai Emery.
Every decision he makes is heavily scrutinised. He is now at a stage that he will always be criticised, rightly or wrongly.
Once it gets like then it really does start to look like that the only way out is for him to depart.
Not because of comments from a low-level pundit but because it is symptomatic of what the 43-year-old is up against.