Unai Emery has once again demonstrated his remarkable record in European competition after guiding Aston Villa to Europa League success, further strengthening his reputation as one of the competition’s most accomplished managers.
The Spanish coach has now won every Europa League final in which he has managed a team, with the only exception coming during his spell at Arsenal in 2019. On that occasion, Arsenal were defeated by Chelsea in the final, and Emery was dismissed later that year before being replaced by Mikel Arteta.
Arsenal Progress Since Emery Exit
Seven years after Emery’s departure, Arsenal have finally ended their 22-year wait for a Premier League title and could still add the Champions League trophy to their achievements this season. The club’s recent progress under Arteta has reinforced the belief that patience and long-term planning have played a major role in their development.
At the same time, Emery’s continued success at Aston Villa has prompted discussion over whether Arsenal might have achieved more had he been given additional time at the club. Despite his tactical ability, the Spaniard struggled to gain widespread support from sections of the Arsenal fanbase during his tenure in North London.
Simon Jordan Defends Emery
Many supporters felt the decision to dismiss Emery was justified at the time, particularly as performances and results had become inconsistent. Arsenal ultimately chose to begin a new project under Arteta, a process that required patience but has now delivered major success for the club.
According to the Metro, broadcaster Simon Jordan believes Emery was a capable coach who arrived at Arsenal during the wrong period. He said: “‘It proves that Arsenal weren’t wrong when they went for him. Just the timing, he was the right person probably at the wrong time, and look at the language the media thought it was funny to ridicule his inability to articulate the way he thought he should do. No one is ridiculing him now.’”
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Unai Emery has always been a manager that I have looked up to. Arsenal should have given him more time and more funds, because he has shown in the past how good he is. Many clubs make the mistake of not having patience with their mangers, if success does not come immediately. This year, Emery crowns the fine work of pulling Aston Villa up from a mediocre level to a top level and wins the Europe League. Unai Emery is really a manager who lives in the games and if his team loses you can clearly see how much he suffers and if wins, so he is full of enthusiasm. It’s refreshing to see a manager give so much of himself and encourage his players during the games. It’s amazing how successful the Spanish managers are in the Premier League.
Without wishing to rubbish Emery’s achievements at Villa, because he has elevated them, it’s worth remembering the points difference of 20 currently between AV and Arsenal.
The structure of the Europa league also changed to disallow the lower rated teams from the group stage of the CL to drop down to the EL. With the Premier League being so competitive (unlike many other leagues) it does make the Europa and Conference Leagues easier for English clubs to do well in due to this strength and depth. There is a world of difference between them and the CL which really does get the cream by the semi final stage and, therefore, a much harder challenge to win.
Europa League is not consider top level anymore as now more of the elite club play for champion league. On the same league 4-5 club competing for champion league. The format that finish 3rd in champion league group stage will automatically go down to Europa league is no more already. That why Europa League is much more easier to win this day
He bought pepper for £70m and pepper end up in not been productive where as there are better alternative in the league that cheaper and more productive than pepper.
@Fadare Abiodun
Emery did not even want PePe. He wanted Zaha. Because zaha was epl proven goal scorer. The board wanted PePe because he was younger and might have a better resale value…🤣
The ridicule was disgraceful but to say he was the right coach at the wrong time doesn’t ring true to me unless there’s going to be excuses given for why he failed
I knew virtually nothing about Emery other than his record in the Europa league and having managed PSG. It was an impressive resume.
For most of his maiden season the results were really good so there didn’t appear to be any reason why they fell off a cliff in the spring and why the team put in a shameful performance in the Europa League final to scupper any chance of CL football for next season.
The following few months were disastrous and there had to be a reason why it happened. I don’t accept that his lack of English and the spiteful remarks which ensued were reason enough to fall away so badly. He’d managed PSG! He’d won major titles!
So for me, looking back, he was unable to translate his achievements in Spain and France to the EPL. My view is that he should have been able to do better and that is why I expected better.
Following on, he has come back stronger for the experience and failure in English football but I’m not sure at all he would be any better coming to our league for the first time now. Aston Villa have benefited from what he learned at Arsenal which has enabled Emery to consolidate his position there as a highly regarded manager.
I was very optimistic when we signed Emery, and it was a relief when he left, and Arsenal was 12th in the league. We were in relegation form and his support was gone even in the dressing room.
I don’t blame Emery because we had lots of problems all over the place, and he wasn’t able to make them go away. Today I believe he’s a perfect coach / manager for average clubs with not too much expectations. In such environment he can do great things which he has done with most of his clubs. Yes, I know he had success in PSG, but that league aren’t PL. He wasn’t able to win the CL and didn’t got a renewal of his contract.
To say he failed is an understatement. He was never given the proper time, support or resources to get a foothold into the club to make any type of difference. And to make matters worse. He was never the manager. He was the “Head Coach”. Why bring in a manager of such stature and not have trust in his managerial abilities? Guess they were hesitant to give anyone else the power that AW possessed. And yet, they turned around after firing their “head coach” Emery and gave those very powers to Arteta. Someone please make it make sense. 🤔
I can try, when Arteta signed in December 2019 he was our head coach. After winning the FA Cup in 2020 he was upgraded to manager in September same year.
When Wenger left we got more or less a new management group. They hired Raul Sanllehi as head of football relations (from Barca) and Sven Mislintat to head our player recruitments. Raul was hired to build a new organisation with inspiration from Spain and other international leagues.
In this structure they don’t have managers but head coach. Together with other internal HR resources they are handling most of the managers tasks.
After relatively short time they decided not to have a head coach but a manager. Raul left Arsenal after approximately 2,5 years, in August 2020. Between 2018 and 2020 there were lots of people in and out of our organisation and it must have been difficult being Emery. When Emery got sacked he had lost his support and our environment was difficult and very hostile. I remember that we were losing lots of games and had a very negative trend towards the bottom of the table. From my point of view very similar to Tottenham this season.
@Didrik Plehn
Appreciate this. Thank you.
People forget arsenal approached Luis Enrique before Emery. Enrique said money had to be spent and he had to make transfer decisions.
Gazidis flat rejected that because about a year or so plus prior he had appointed super scout mtinslat and prior to that was the stat data system that was used for targetting players for recruitment. Wenger in his last few years had his say stripped away from him. Wenger wanted martial with the swap with sanchez, mtinslat wanted mkhytarian who he had brought to dortmund. Mustafi, aubmeyang, lacazette and others were board signings. When wenger left there was a whole new team in place mtisnlat, sanhelli , vinai and gazidis who over saw them. Emery was appointed after rejecting Enrique. Emerys big mistake was he said ” there doesnt need to much changes in recruitment ” it was clear he accepted the job knowing he had no say. Shortly after it started to unravel – mtinslat was annoyed because he didnt want to be a glorified scout he wanted to be in control fully of recruitment , he also wanted to sign players who would be loyal to him ( he tried the same after at stuttgart ,then ajax, and was sacked). Gazidis announced he would be leaving as he believed his work was done in terms of removing wenger and putting in a team that would handle transfers and give a manager less power. Mtinslat left shortly after. Sanhelli took control. Emery wanted the player from palace but sanhelli gave him pepe. Gazidis, sanhelli mtinslat, vinai – were collectively the world’s worst transfer committee of a club. They all put themselves first never the club. Look at how sanhelli left? He over paid for pepe and it was revealed. Look at his appointment- he wasnt part of the recruitment at Barca – yet gazidis brought in someone incompetent. He is now at Inter miami- if he was good at his job he would be still at a European club. .
Emery’s own style at arsenal was very disjointed. They could win but it would be unconvincing. Losses would be an embarassment of a performance. Emery screwed himself with prioritising the europa where they played well, but then the pl performance was a far car from that. He should have solidified 4th place when it was easier to achieve. His tactics and approach in the pl were the reason we missed out. So he brought the pressure upon himself. Then after it just unraveled as the team was full of mediocrity, overpaid self serving individuals and lack of discipline. What I never understood about Emery was … in wengers final season he brought through willock and even though using niles as lb he said he will be a midfielder. Yet Emery sent willock back to the youth team , was it to give mtinslats signing guendozhi a starting role as promised by mtinslat? That period was a mess , he should have known better after his experience in Russia and then PSG.
How he was mocked because of how he said certain English words, was all because of linekar. It was abysmal how he was mocked and yet Linekar only offered a small apology months later realising how wrong it was.
Its good to see Emery succeeding at villa – he showed gerrard and dean Smith the gulf in managerial ability he has over them.
@Ad
Thank you very much…👏🏾
Raul Sanllehi was involved in the recruitment process in Barca.
Director of Professional Football / Director of Football (2008–2018): Operated as the chief transfer negotiator, helping complete major deals for players such as Neymar and Luis Suárez. Source AI.
I think Simon Jordan is right.
Good manager. Wrong time.
The manager after Arsene Wenger needed to be a steady set of hands prioritising defence over attack. I have always believed it should have been Raffa Benitez for a period of 2-3 years as he had PL experience and a good grasp of the language and good man-management skills. After that it would not have mattered who the good manager was: Be it Arteta or Emery. I think either would have brought success over time if they were given the right backing.
We have congratulate the Kronke’s for actually supporting the manager with time and funds after they made their mistakes with the recruitment team post Wenger as mentioned by @ DP and @A.
To be fair AFC, they had to make mistakes and they have not made too many if you compare the number of mistakes made by Man Utd after SAF’s departure.
@Indian Gunner
Well put. Thank you.
Don’t forget that Arteta cleared out the mess, re established our values, updated our training methods and facilities. Started a total rebuild of our squad. I don’t believe we could have been successful without this work, it’s the foundation of our consistency and success.
Without doing this I don’t believe it would have been possible to be successful in Arsenal FC, independent of merits and name. I don’t say that only Arteta could have done this, but it has been crucial for our development afterwards.
@ DP
Agree with the clearance job. This kind of job could have been done by the interim like Raffa Benitez had he been backed.
I may be wrong here, but I think AW had a contract till 2014. IMO, this was the point for AW to leave. The board did not have a succession plan at that point. They made a hotch-potch version involving all the people mentioned in your post between 2014 – 2019. Realised their errors and then re-evaluated.
AW left in 2018, and the management interviewed several potential head coaches, but felt convinced about Emery because he already had done an analysis of strength and weakness in our squad.
I was at the Emirates when we had Merci Wenger against Burnley in 2018, last home match that season 🙂
@ DP
I know AW left in 2018. He had a contract till 2014. From what I heard, he was in a position to leave but the board did not have a succession plan in place and he stayed on for a further 3 years and then had a contract till 2019 which was terminated by mutual consent in 2018.
DP, one of the players he cleared out, PEA, is still creating problems, now at Marseille. The squad were ordered to stay at the training centre overnight a couple of weeks ago by the Head Coach as a punishment. PEA ended up spraying the coach in charge of keeping an eye on the players with a fire extinguisher. He was then suspended for their next game, which they won.
So glad he left us.
Indeed HD 🙂
It’s never easy with these kind of processes but I believe it was crucial for our development. These problems is time wasting and steels energy. I believe we lost one season because of the mess..
Now we are champions and our owner will support more fun in the upcoming window. I believe we will get better next season 🙂 Fingers crossed for the CL final 🔴⚪️🏆
Regarding PEA: it’s like a big ship where the captain is responsible, but he has a deck officer with his own agenda. The captain has described the route, but the deck officer has his own ideas and turns the ship around 🙂 I have had much responsibility myself and there have been tough times, but some has to be responsible at make decisions if not you get mutiny 🙂
Unai Emery was the right coach for Arsenal & we could have won the league 2 or 3 times with him . Emery couldn’t speak English then & it became a problem. He was unfortunate that the patience shown with Arteta wasn’t done to him. I regard him as one of the best coaches in EPL .
There are many players and managers that don’t have good English and interpreters are provided so I don’t believe that was the issue
Yes, almost everyone could have managed to win the league with Arsenal. When I am checking our club history a lot of managers has tried but very few has managed to do it. If it was easy Man.United with their resources should win the league regularly, but they haven’t managed since Ferguson retired in 2013. It’s great to have a colourful imagination 🙂
Talking of Emery, I discovered at the weekend why he is so successful regards the Europa League.
If his team had the name Villa in it, he wins. Villareal, Sevilla, and Aston Villa.
Go to the top of the class Derek👏👏
SueP,
Go to the top of the class you say. I’m already feeling the effects of our team now being top, it’s rubbed off on me. 😉👍
@DEREK
Brilliant…🤣👏🏾
NY-Gunner,
👍👍👍👍👍