The end is nigh for poor old Unai. Rumours abound about the succession plan. The slow walk towards a fat pay off for the post-Wenger nightmare hire.

I feel for him on a human level. He wanted to succeed, but things were never going to work for him at Arsenal. He was badly miscast and Raul has a lot to be sorry for.

At the core of the failure is a simple one. His English has been terrible; if anything, it has regressed. That he failed to improve on it over the course of 18 months is on him. Watching a Sky Sports reporter take the piss out of him was a real struggle for me. On the one hand, it’s really fucking unprofessional to do that to someone for a cheap laugh, kicking a man like that was cowardice. On the other hand, I can’t help but think it summed up the whole issue of communication rather well. If Emery had understood what was going on, he might have had a chance to fire back at him.

‘You stand before the great Unai and you mock my accent? Come here little bitch boy and I will spank you bare arse with my leather belt like your mother’s boyfriend should have’

The reality is, he’s at the absolute pinnacle of the game, he’s earning £6m a year… he’s in the top 0.01% of humans on the planet when it comes to wealth. If you can’t master the language of the country you reside in, you don’t deserve the job or to be successful. It’s a very important details thing for me. I keep coming back to it, but his inability to master the word ‘evening’ 18 months in speaks volumes about how seriously he’s taking his Duoling apps. That issue should have been nipped in the bud two press conferences in.

‘The Brits can’t talk, they’re language ignorant’

Yes we are, but if £6m was on the table, you’d have Big John from Mardyke Estate chatting Mandarin to his clients in no time.

This is a reductive line of attack anyway. Emery took the job, presumably predicated on learning the language quickly. He has failed. I have two cousins that work in the trade, they wanted to learn Spanish. In a year, they are fluent enough to have elevated conversations with my Hispanic girlfriend. If they can do it in the name of getting access to elite foreign women, I think Unai can do it to help save his job.

I still can’t quite believe that large portions of the fanbase argued language wasn’t a problem. Quite staggering. The internet will argue anything if it’s me. Poor me. But right me all the same.

That means the next person we hire is going to have to be a sharp-tongued master of the Queen’s English. I want a manager that does poetry slam’s on the side. Someone that has – I enjoy puns – in their social bios. A manager that didn’t need a ghostwriter for the best selling novel they penned on the side.

Step forward Steve Bould.

‘GRANIT YOU FUCKING DONUT’

The story doing the rounds is that the job will be given to Freddie and Steve until Arsenal lock in a new manager. That makes sense, it’s not a longterm solve, but it’ll bring a bit of spirit back to the squad. We might see a bit more logic to the way we set up. The fans might actually want to go to the games.

Then we have the familiar selection of names being pushed around. Pochettino will be talked about because he’s the obvious candidate. I would love him, he’s everything we need, but the guy seems like he has values and I can’t help but think he’s being groomed for United… or he’ll be eyeing the PSG job when Thomas Tuchel moves to Bayern Munich in the summer.

Allegri still doesn’t have a job, but by all accounts, he interviewed so badly with Arsenal the entire selection team thought Emery was mesmeric. Think about that. What the fuck did Allegri do? Did he pull out a presentation for Spurs because he’d misinterpreted the brief? Did he fart and acknowledge it as part of a wider metaphor about resolute defending? I suspect his English may have been poor at the time, which could ONLY have been a problem because Raul couldn’t translate because that certainly wasn’t an issue for Emery.

Big worry for Allegri is simple. He’s a big fucking deal. He is part of the elite. He’s unlikely going to want to oversee a major rebuild on children’s money. I worry he could be bigger than the club and I’m just unsure if he feels right for the brand of football we pretty much all want to see.

Mikael Arteta is my man. You know this. Question is, would he move midseason? Are we appealing after we bitch-slapped him back to Manchester? Does he have the stomach for the mess?

He’s a much-hyped coach. There’s a high chance he could be the next thing. A football obsessive, an ex-captain, and part of the most winningest machine in Premier League history (that plays sexy future football). You’d be mad not to want some of that Manchester City hot sauce. Aash mentioned on the podcast that Eddie Jones visited Pep to get tips on territory strategies for the rugby world cup. That’s how phenomenal the IP is down there. Our next coach needs to be thinking beyond Kola on the overlap.

There will always be a set of fans that promote the idea that a club can’t be fixed by a great coach. That is a nonsense and you should beware the pessimists. Wenger was defended for years with toothless deflections like ‘but who could replace him’, now look where we are 5 years on. Liverpool and Spurs, who were both behind us by a margin on and off the pitch, are now in far better shape than us.

Both rebirths started with an exciting vision brought about by two exciting coaches.

Arsenal need a vision. If we don’t make top 4 this season, a long shot at this moment, we’ve basically got the transfer ban Chelsea had this season, so we’ll need a similar strategy to move forward. Young coach, everything to prove, doing it with exciting young talent. Arteta is a great coach, no doubt, question is, can he be a great manager? I certainly think he has enough elite endorsements to be worth a shot midseason.

Fingers crossed Edu doesn’t have a friend that has a pal that knows a dog that has a line into Neil Warnock.

You can never be too careful…

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