‘Thank you for your interest in our affairs’

by .

There were some questions as to whether the David Ornstein story was briefed before or after the Leicester game. Sami Mokbel writing in the Daily Mail appears to confirm that Arsenal’s briefing angle is very much in line with the exBBC journo’s narrative.

Thank you for your interest in our affairs. Emery ain’t going anywhere.

When it was Arsene Wenger at the wheel, you’d generally be safe in the knowledge that the players would respond in the end. This was mostly down to a simple truth that Wenger couldn’t be ousted by the players. He was too deeply ingrained in the club to be moved on.

The stance by the current hierarchy makes sense, they don’t want the fans to think they can run a manager out of the club. In my opinion, we’re not the people the exec leadership team should be worried about. The players are the biggest challenge to Emery’s doomed tenure. The current situation around the manager has nothing to do with the fans in the stadium, for me, it’s all about the breakdown in the relationship with a manager who is making more mistakes off the pitch than on it.

He’s sacked his captain who now looks likely to leave in January. He has performed a 360 on Mesut Ozil, who is now back in contention after Emery told the press leadership agreed he should drop him. The manager seems to not fancy any of his summer signings, bar David Luiz. The kids are taking the piss behind his back. He let the failed club psychologist advise him that a vote for the captaincy was smart. The football is absolutely atrocious.

It’s hard to see how Emery makes it to the end of the season, but the good news for him is the fixture list looks very kind until we meet Manchester City in mid-December. At the very least, he should be able to stabilize the ship, then we’ll be mauled through the frightening Christmas crunch.

I took in the Liverpool vs City game yesterday. It’s hard to overstate what an incredible job Jurgen Klopp has done with Liverpool. Their brand of football is truly a delight to watch. They make the basics look so simple. Watching them play the ball out the back brought tears to my eyes. It was interesting that once they’d played it short, the transition out of defence was often a longish ball to one of the front three that had dropped deep, with the hope of catching a full back breaking into space. Arsenal almost never seem to make it out of their own third when they go short. Why is it so hard to teach talented players to beat the pressure?

Outside that, the speed of their counter-attacks are a sight to behold. The accuracy of their balls into the box is dreamlike. The application of every single player must be a joy to watch.

Arsenal are unlikely to find a Jurgen Klopp, but hopefully, we can find a manager that has a vision as vivid as the one he has for Liverpool. Personality goes a long way at the highest level, but deeper than that, having an idea everyone can gather around is where you want to be.

Looking at the sort of players Arsenal have, I think it’s clear that we should make the Arsenal idea an exciting one. I don’t think we’re built for a Jose Mourinho. I think the kids coming through want to play explosive football. I think we have electricity in our front line, and with a couple of powerful additions to our midfield, we could have a scary offering moving forward.

Ideally, you’d have Emery in until the end of the season so the leadership don’t have to make a bad decision under duress, I just can’t see that happening though. That’s why I think I’d opt for Freddie Ljungberg until the end of the season if we do have to end Emery’s tenure early. Give Edu a chance to find the coach that’s going to give us a vision for the next 5 years.

What a complicated mess we have ourselves in, the good news is we have some time off to stew on the ramifications as we enter yet another boring international break.

See you in the comments, listen to my damn podcast.

DropboxiTunes | Stitcher | Spotify

512 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Receding Hairline

“One poster once said the day aubameyang will stop scoring will be the beginning of our demise because he has been bailing and covering Emery’s tactical deficiencies since last season.” Another fallacy Aubameyang is a striker and his job is to put away chances, literally the only thing he contributes to a football match, so him doing that isn’t bailing anyone out. Same way Kane wasn’t bailing Pochettino out all those years he was banging them in for form. If we were discussing a Messi who contributes assists, dribbles and generally runs a football game all by himself i would… Read more »

Bamford10

Redtruth

“Leicester are not top four material you f*ckin idiots. Arsenal will be above them at the end of the season.”

Nah, you have this wrong, Red; you have Leicester wrong, and you have us wrong. Unless we sign a new midfielder or two in January, there is no chance we finish top four. And Leicester will be in in the hunt until the end. It will be a battle between Chelsea, United and Leicester for places 3rd and 4th.

Bamford10

All of the below have a better first 14 than Arsenal:

Chelsea
Leicester
Spurs
United
City
Liverpool

Bamford10

It’s interesting that yesterday’s fanboy favorite Mauricio Pochettino gets so little stick or criticism here despite his having a good Spurs team in 14th place in the PL.

Double standards?

Receding Hairline

When you spend days and hours on end blaming a man for everything bad under the sun the at some point you will start bringing up irrelevant stuffs Kids making fun of him at the club isn’t on him rather it’s on them and their lack of respect, what exactly have they achieved in the game to warrant making fun of Unai Emery? Nothing Acknowledging squad deficiencies is also not a defense of Emery Acknowledging poor individual performances is not a defense of Emery Pointing out an entitlement mentality is not a defense of Emery Like i said earlier the… Read more »

Bamford10

Hilarious that Charlie thinks my observations from October of 2018 — before Puel was fired — are somehow damning. Right, Puel didn’t have them playing well; this is why he was fired.

No one is saying that Rodgers is not a big part of why they are doing so well. They also happen to have better PL players than us, though.

Bamford10

New post.

Leedsgunner

Leicester do not have better players than us… they are better organised though. A better coach, and a better vision goes a long way.

MartinellisHead

Bumford desperately needs some pussy

PhD2020

.

PhD2020

..

PhD2020

??

1 4 5 6