So I basically caused a revolt in the comments section with my ‘crazy’ views on Unai Emery last season. I called out the basics like language issues, the negative football, and the fact he lost a one horse race at the richest club in the world. I highlighted his dismal defensive record at all his clubs , I found damning quotes from his explayers, I brought ‘sauce’ into the common vernacular… I’ll cut to the point, I basically did the due diligence Arsenal failed to do on our bland hire.
Every melt under the sun abused me. Two of my London friends pulled me to one side last Christmas and told me to behave because I was taking the criticism too far.
‘Emery is good, look at the results. I think there’s something wrong with you?’
Now all of a sudden, the world has realised that I was correct (again), but are they talking about Le Grove? No, they’re talking about some handsome ESPN journo who strung some tweets together in 2018 at the same time… like he was the lone voice.
‘Isn’t it spooky how accurate this obscure handsome man is’
It’s a fucking disgrace. I now know how Xhaka felt on Monday. At least when he was being booed, it was for slow-walking and telling the fans to fuck off. I’m serving up 30-yard football insight screamers, people are seeing them, criticising them for being tap-ins, and… hold on, I’m lost here. Basically, the internet is shit. Everyone was there to call Le Grove a DISGRACE during the unbeaten run, but no one is there rolling out the OH BOY YOU WERE RIGHT RED CARPET now I have been largely proven right.
I don’t even like high praise anyway, fuck you. Fuck you.
*throws shirt to ground and storms down the tunnel*
No, I will not fucking apologise Unai, you cheese on GOOD EBENING toast melt.
Talking of Xhaka, Sami Mokbel said Arsenal are offering the Swiss counselling. I really don’t know where to go with this sort of commentary. If he genuinely has mental health issues, I’d leave this alone, but we live in a culture of amateur psychologists (thank you, Mr Ganesh), so it’s hard to tell what is real and what makes for a trendy headline. We all go through rough patches when we’re performing badly at work, is that not just feeling shit about being a bit shit? Does it always have to be something deeper? I’m honestly not critiquing mental health here, but I do find people’s amaeteur diagnosis and assumptions as damaging as ignoring them. Everyone cited Ozil as being depressed last year and it was totally made up.
Anyway, dealing in facts, the player has entered day 3 and he’s refusing to apologise. He also took time out to rile the fans by changing his Instagram profile picture to one of him in a Swiss shirt. I have to say, that was a zinger, our group chat went wild over that one.
The overarching feeling is the player is acting like a 14-year-old.
There are a lot of people claiming we shouldn’t need an apology as fans. You’re right. I fucking hate apology culture. It’s a real leftwing pass time in America, people love a ‘THEY MUST APOLOGISE’ outrage, then the apology comes and some obscure charity that campaigns for the rights of people that work as Christmas elves tweets ‘NOT GOOD ENOUGH’… I digress. The apology isn’t for the fans, it’s for the manager.
Unai Emery, to be fair to him, has mostly done this by the book. As Matt on the podcast pointed out, his poor English maybe lacked some finesse, but overall, he condemned the action and said it was wrong. The fact Xhaka hasn’t come out and apologised has made Emery look weak, and that’s unforgivable from a captain… especially when the manager put his career on the line by giving the armband to him in the first place.
The apology is also for the club and the people that pay him. We’re a community-based club. We have values. We preach class. Xhaka telling fans to fuck off is not a good look for the brand and it’s not a good example to set to kids (think of the children!). Shit is going to happen in your life, tantrum-ing like a kid and telling everyone to fuck off is embarrassing and it shouldn’t be passed off as ‘he’s just human.’
Do that in a client meeting when you’re told your ideas are a dumpster fire of human excrement, you’re out the door. There are literally no arenas where that sort of workplace prose is tolerated in front of clients. I have to say, when you work in a factory, you can say what you like to each other and ‘banter’ is always a mitigating circumstance, but still, not in front of clients and it’s important to note, this was not in a factory.
As for the fans making out this is going to cost us players in the future, bitch please. Arsenal is in north London, we have a sweet stadium and whatever sympathy you feel towards Granit, recognize he’s earning more than you and he thinks you’re a peasant. Fuck it, I think you’re a peasant just for retweeting that handsome man’s super great insights THAT I ALSO HAD BUT WITH MORE DETAIL.
Back to my point. The apology issue is now an Emery issue. A hot-headed moment might be forgivable, an insolent refusal to rectify the mistake and change the news cycle is not. The manager now has to act, and I’m afraid he’s going to have to remove Granit from his duties or look even weaker than he already does.
… and seriously, if you were any other manager in world football, you’d be doing cartwheels if there was an easy out for removing Xhaka as a captain after a month. It’s not even controversial and it’ll make the team better.
Second part of the equation here is this: Forget the ‘players ran to his side’ nonsense. They all know that Granit’s behaviour was unacceptable. If Emery lets this slide, he will be letting a squad that’s out of control know that he’s there to be rolled. He might as well put the gimp mask on and hand the dog chain to whoever is kinky enough to parade him around the training ground.
The notion that the manager is worried about a revolt is pathetic and actually aligns to the sexy ESPN man’s insights about how players of his past teams saw him as meek and easy to dominate. Emery should take control of the situation. These player report into one man and one man alone.
Also, imagine fearing the personalities in our squad? It’s a group of very nice, well-meaning guys. This is hardly Chelsea at its peak under Jose. Bar Kola and Luiz, those two could be dangerous.
Right, that’s me done. Please listen to my podcast. I did it via Skype and I’m very proud of terrific output. You also owe me, so cough up with your ears.
lol everyone keeps saying Holding still remains unfit.
How about fans were massively over-rating him as well
Tierney much sharper than Bellerin.
Saka needs to learn how to turn and get forward.
Martinez again not snuffing out danger.
5 mins.. of course.
Mustafi almost did what he did vs Crystal Palace last season…wanting Martinez to come all the way out to help him pick the ball up…
Where’s the 5 min from ??
Ceballos steals the ball then passes it bad. And I’m here thinking – “should I commend him for doing well in the first part or should I critisize him for not being good enough on his delivery…
Looks like will start this midfield on Saturday; Guen, Ceballos and Willock
Saka is going to pick up an injury if he doesn’t have a rest soon.
It was coming. Ofc.
Ishola, looks like you don’t get it re Holding…like you have an agenda…he only cost 2 mil compared to the waste Mustafi and even to an extent Papas, and he’s on par or better than both.
The problem is, Real know he’s a dud but will put a £50m tag on because he’s a Madrid player…and we would pay it.
He’s shit.
Of course we couldn’t hold on.
Oh ffs
Shower of shit.
Martinez can’t save a ball if his life depended on it.
Emery with his useless sub, how can u sub torr for ceballos??? Stupid idiot
Another ball that went near him.
Oh boy, you know it was going to happen…the idiot manager brought on the wrong players…
Our defense is just not good enough.
Surely we wouldn’t concede from here?
ohhhh this is sad. We should be laughing.
Guendouzi has been culpable too many times defending
Hahahahaha calamity.
Wow
Holding is shit since he came back…
lol banter match.
Guendouzi is shit in the air it has to be said.
But the Liverpool CF peeled off away from goal and no CB followed his move
Probably lose this now.
Awful substitutions as usual by El-Dicko.
What price for an AMN penalty miss?
Emery has to go tonight.
This is a humiliating result.
Why the fuck Saka stopped and not trying to block the fucking cross. Same old same old letting crosses in.
This is another shit performance by Emery’s tactics, make no mistake….we had the stronger squad today and he couldn’t set up right.
Ridiculous.
This is another blight on Dick Emery
Unreal… pk shootout it is then..
We will lose on pens..
No mental strength.
We had game won..
Then we choked.
i just waited for it ,now we will lose.
Brewster made Mustafi eat his own balls like Zlatan famously said.
“we had the stronger squad today and he couldn’t set up right.”
Course
Someone said earlier Origi was shite?
Arsenal have become a joke.
Really have to question those subs, one could argue it was preplanned had so little to do with state of play.
They have a little child in goal for the pens.
Surely Arsenal win the pen shoot out
Sigh we just can’t defend Mustafi was a foot away ffs
Well that was entertaining….it’s just sad that Klopp wasn’t even trying…
How much Holding cost really isn’t an issue here
They were calls for him to start in the league also calls to make him captain
Another masterful, organised display, improvements galore.
Just the 5 conceded tonight against the Melwood massive
AMN mustnt get near the penalty area.
Shown up by Liverpool’s youth.?
What was the point of Ceballos for Torreira?
Trying to attack and cede complete control of the midfield.
Saka had been poor and tiring all evening. Was obvious to everybody that he should have been replaced. Except for the man in charge.
Like Özil said. Call yourself a coach.
Arsenal win on pens.
If they don’t it will be another joke like the final result was.
Brewster should of been chopped down in midfield when they broke.
Leon could have saved at least one or two of those five goals.
18 months and still no improvement in basic defending.
We can of course blame having shit defenders in the squad. But I thought Urine Emery was supposed to be able to improve all these players so we can get more out of them?
All the good work of the lads going forward has been shite upon by bollocks defending. Seriously, get this fucking clown out of our club and find a fucking COACH who will bring in specialists to help get some technique and positioning instilled in the players.
Lol That was me James Wood… I jinxed it .. we make him look like peak Pele. To be fair I said a bit shit. 😀
Guendouzi didn’t jump or can’t jump?
If our fullbacks and whoever don’t learn to block crosses we will keep conceding.
I think pens could go either way with two shit teams trying their luck…..
It has to be said, there’s no mental strength with Emery’s setup…
Why do I get the feeling some people at Arsenal will forget the fact we’re playing Liverpool’s 12 year olds and say this is the type of game fans want to see?
I know its the pants cup but emery really can’t coach defence for shit . You can’t lead games four times and blow it . Raul put him out of his misery its fucking torture being an arsenal fan with this guy in charge
Only Arsenal
If you’re a Liverpool fan can you imagine how you’d be feeling.
Your kids have taken apart Arsenal’s first team.
5 goals away from home and we still can’t win. Fucking appalling.
Milner gives us a gift, but you could just see how calm and assured the squad was, even with their kids in, knew they would get something out of it.
I don’t give a fudge about Carabooboo cup. But watching us play so bad in defence with what is a very close to starting 11 defence + midfield is painful and it shows a repeating pattern under Emery.
I’m gonna lose my phone stream for sure now.
Surely they win the pens with that child Liverpool have in goal.
Let’s advance in the beer cup lol
We loose this right?
**lose
You just know it’s lost now . Emery really got to go
Midwest i have done the same on many occasions.
loosing my bowels…
What a pen by Guen. Good stuff.
Who will be the scapegoat tonight
Fashionista Bellerina
i would give my left ball for a Tony adams.
No way Arsenal win thd penalty shootout with that clown in goal.
Martinelli great shot
Pressure on the 18 yo.
Who was the bit of skirt behind Emery?
Martinez can’t pick the right angle. Just do it once dafug?!?!?!?
Bye bye Emery.
Babe
mmmmm
Who is that dolly behind Emery?
Emery been taking his eye off the ball and giving her behind him the chorizo
Only excuse worth hearing
If this comes down to Mustafi we are screwed.. lol
Lolz. Ceballos. Shit.
Martinez diving too early.
Good pen by Ceballos but their keeper got the angle. Our clown Martinez didn’t do that once.
Brewster
He used to pitch for the Yankees didn’t he
AMN. Lols. No.
Fk is our keeper?!?!?! He will never pick the correct side?!?!?!
Ceballos is a fucking waste of space.
Best since Cesc my nutsack
No
The child has saved one
AMN on the weed.
Go to your right for once Martinez.
Ceballos of course.
Going out going out
Bollocks.
Bye bye Emery. Hello Freddie.
That was probably our best chance of a trophy. First round.
He has to go.