Emery sacked. A disaster hire, but who is accountable for it?

by .

Unai Emery arrived at Arsenal on his 555th as coach and was told his contract was to be terminated. I suspect he knew what was coming judging by his body language last night. His staff will also leave the club with him.

The hire was a disaster from start to finish. Raul put the Spaniard’s name on the table when Ivan Gazidis wobbled on Arteta during the search and select process. In a fit of panic no one ran his credentials through a quick Google search. No one picked up the phone to people that had worked with him in the past. No one consulted the data people. The deal was rammed through at such a pace, not one person seemed to raise a red flag about his terrible English. Interview to hire in 8 days.

We paid the price. Almost all of the problems faced by Emery seemed to revolve around his lack of ability to communicate both verbal and non-verbally.

He couldn’t command a room. The man had zero presence. No X factor. People laughed when I raised that, but let’s be honest, if you don’t have an impressive stage presence, you are going to struggle to maintain the attention of 21-year-old boys in a football environment. Players ripped him behind his back, to his face, even Sky presenters weighed in on the action. Disrespect happens to people that don’t have the magic. Wenger had the magic, Mourinho has it, so does Poch… Emery is right there with Glen Roeder when it comes to persona and it dripped through every single press conference. In fact, I hear that press conferences were barely attended towards the end, that says something, doesn’t it?

He couldn’t connect his vision to output on the pitch. In fact, it was questionable if there was a vision there to start with. If Emery was good at anything though, it was talking up a game he couldn’t deliver on. He told the fans he wanted to be the protagonist, when in fact he was a conservative pragmatist. He said he’d fix the defence, he broke it further. He promised us exciting football, he emptied stadiums.

I wrote very early on that Unai Emery represented our version of David Moyes. We’re now heading into the difficult second hire. Inexperienced execs will clamour for experience over substance, just like they did at Manchester United when they moved in on an LVG that was well past his prime.

This is not the time for regressing into bad ideas. We hired ‘experience’ last time and look where it landed us. We have to be looking to where the future of football is going. If we’re in the power and pace era right now, we have to peer around the corner to where the trends are going and find a coach who can take us there. Intense possession-based football is likely going to make a comeback and with young coaches like Thiaggo Motta making claims about 2-7-2 formations and controlling the game through the midfield, the evidence is mounting. Huge focus will be given to off the ball movement as well. A new type of coaching where the spaces you occupy are the tackles of yesteryear. We are not big enough to make a ‘tried and true’ coach work for us, so we need to go where the new thinking is.

‘This is all so hipster’ is something I hear a lot, but listen, looking to the future might feel like an oat milk latte served in a ‘goat support’ cafe in Primrose Hill, but it’s not, it’s absolute basics if you want to succeed. Pep was lambasted because of his ideas when he came to England. The English press were literally slamming the guy because he likes to experiment and push the game forward. Don’t be that person. If you need any evidence as to why, simply look a what just happened to Arsenal after we hired a mainstream Starbucks filter coffee.

Arsenal need to be bold, we need to look at what clubs like RB Leipzig, Gladbach, Rangers and Chelsea are doing. Go young, find someone that can galvanise the fans with future football, let’s not do the top 4 equivalent of calling Sam Allardyce to move us forward marginally over 15 months. Bring in a coach you can build around, don’t let Carlo bring in 18 of his mates with a spice of football that was bland 5 years ago.

What is desperate for us all regardless of the type of coach we desire is knowing that Raul is playing a key role in this decision.

That man is not good for Arsenal football club, he should be kept in check by a CEO that has oversight on him. The Spaniard and Vinnai have been the worst combo since Houllier and Evans. Our organizational structure is meek and so is the performance of it. The lack of strong leadership will continue to kill us, and in times like now, we really could do with a CEO that has a clue.

Raul will be stacking the deck in favour of people he knows. He was happy to jam through his preferred candidate last time, knowing full well he didn’t have the basics for the job. The fact he’s pushing Nuno tells you immediately where he wants to take us… to a super agent paradise.

Most fans don’t want that sort of future. It might seem glitzy, but when you boil it down, you simply open yourself up to be a fee cow for someone that wants to trade players around their personal network. Those systems are opaque, they lack accountability, they move the club away from being a meritocracy, they almost always end in tears. No super-agent cares about your club, they only care about their fees.

That’s why the power vacuum at Arsenal is so incredibly dangerous because really, a proper CEO would be laser-focused on Raul after this debacle and the mess of the summer.

They’d be asking questions like:

  • Why did Sven leave?
  • Why is there still no chief scout?
  • How did you come to the decisions on transfers last summer?
  • Why did you spend so much money on a 32-year-old centre back?
  • Can you replay the thinking behind hiring Unai Emery?
  • Knowing the history of Nuno and Mendes, can you explain why you think this is a good idea?
  • Can you show me how much money we have spent on agents fees over the past two years?

There’s no one guarding the chicken coup, and that would be fine if you had someone competent running the show, but it’s increasingly looking like Raul is the fox and he’s coming to town with his mates until he spies another chicken coup.

Josh Kroenke, the man who told us to get excited, let the club pull next years transfer budget forward, and seemingly blow it on a mess of players. I cannot deny that I wasn’t excited by the moves, but I’m just fan looking at a tasty cracker in the desert after not eating for 10 years. Our first summer of ‘contacts’ recruitment has been a disaster outside of Martinelli. The hiring approach run by Raul was horrendous. This season so far has been handled in appalling fashion, from Ozil, to Xhaka, to the horrendous press releases.

Now we’re out here hoping phase two of the project won’t be just as opaque and awful? The very fact the club is only just now building a shortlist tells you all you need to know about our leadership. We should have had a name ready to go just like Spurs did. That there’s now going to be a fight to the death for the next name is exactly the sort of incompetence I fear driving a terrible decision. Emery’s form this season was not a surprise, we should have known it was going to end by Christmas because many of us were predicting that last season.

We need a complete reset. The club has to move away from ‘contacts’ back to the footing Sven sold to us. There has to be aggressive moves from Edu to control the direction of the technical side. He needs to tell us what the future plan is. Then he needs to deliver something the fans can get behind that doesn’t have the paw prints of Raul on it.

Manchester United are the most powerful footballing entity on the planet, they can afford to continue making horrible decisions with their manager. Arsenal cannot afford another mismanaged hire. We are on a precipice, if we make another bad decision, it could be curtains for us for the next ten years… and you know who won’t be around for the clean-up? Raul.

Be careful what you clamour for… this is a definitive moment for Arsenal, pray the club doesn’t fuck it up.

Good luck to Freddie Ljungberg.

355 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
HighburyLegend

“Vieira about to leave Nice.”

Funny how Arsenal’s future can be less important than to slam Pierre….

G8

I have to admit I thought David luiz would be a decent signing and he would bring some stability to our much malaligned defence, boy was I wrong! So far he has managed to surpass the clowning ability of the legendary stepanovs at old toilet 6/1 defeat I also hoped Toreira would be our kanti, or dennis wise, but he has been a major dissapointment, all he has been doing is loosing possession, falling over and crying . Add mustafi, xhaka, bellend, Ozil, AMN, kola, socratis, and its all doom and gloom Major ablative and reconstructive surgery needed for this… Read more »

Marc

Victorious

Emery going and Ozil have very little connection.

Just for future reference Ozil earns about a fifth of the Spud’s entire wage budget. Just take that on board next time you watch him not breaking a sweat.

HighburyLegend

“Arsenal’s “truly pathetic” recruitment policy left sacked Unai Emery with a number of “uncoachable” players, says Gary Neville.”

He’s not totaly wrong, tbh…

Receding Hairline

Victorious we signed Ozil as a champions league team. With him as our main creative outlet we became a Europa league team that can’t even win the Europa league.

Emery is gone. He has tried his best failed and moved on. Some of you seem to delight in calling him names like he pissed in your coffee but that’s not surprising considering some of the abuse Wenger got.

Dissenter

It would be the height of incompetence if Freddie Ljumberg is considered anything other that a very temporary placeholder.
Raul and Edu ought to have been planning for the possibility of sacking Emery for a while. This was not an unforeseen precipitous collapse. I find it had to imagine they are just going to Kroenke for a pre-planned chat. Most of these meetings can be done via tele.

Dissenter

Emery came and dod his best…unfortunalety it wasn’t good enough.
Had we gotten more from the last five games of last season… who knows.

It’s hard to hate on the guy. He looks like a decent chap to sit next to on a long flight.
It didn’t work out. No one I know developed emotional ties to him [maybe Bamford did]

Dissenter

At some point, I really think Emery knew it was over and wanted to get sacked.
Some of the personnel decisions he made at the tail end were just shocking. He wanted to get his pay-out and just move on.
That the club waited for so long to pull the trigger is the real story. What were they waiting for?

Bergkamp63

Martinelli stats this season, why is he not getting more game time ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/top-scorers

2nd highest scorer
1st in minutes per goal scored
1st in shots on target %

Stick him up top !

Bergkamp63

* shots on target % of strikers

Wenker-Wanger

You think it couldn’t get any worse after the senile Mr Magoo Wenger, but it actually did under EMERY,…
I think emery can at least claim that in his tenure we didn’t get hammered 6-0 or 8-2. That abysmal stat belongs to the AKB cult hero…. the one and only ….never to be forgotten….arse Wenger.

R.S.P.C.Arsenal

Ok

Random team for Sunday.

Leno

Bel chambers holding tier

Willock torr burton
Pepe laca pea

Valentin

Freddie got his full UEFA license A in 2018. You need a full year of coaching before getting your UEFA Pro License. So either Freddie still does not have a UEFA Pro License or he got it very recently. If he got his UEFA Pro license recently that would explain why it was reported that Freddie did not have a UEFA Pro License by every newspapers. Freddie’s name was not on the FA web site page list of people who got a Pro license. Seems that every journalists took their information from the same page and some may have complained… Read more »

Cesc Appeal

Really interested to see whether Ljungberg goes for established players or whether he does add a lot of players that he knows/thinks have been performing at a level they deserve a start this season.

I just don’t want the club/supporters to start talk of giving him a contract if he gets some good results.

Fully behind him. But let’s be sensible.

Biggles

HighburyLegend
November 29, 2019 20:45:50

Breaking news : Vieira about to leave Nice.
———————————————————

Okay, he’s probably a little bit past his best… but he’s still a better midfielder than Xhaka, so if Freddie is reforming the gang, I’m all for it.

Danialtos

What is this am hearing about Luiz getting annoyed at Emery’s defence staff trying to ‘teach him how to defend’?…Because let’s face it,he needs to be taught

Danialtos

And I have finally seen the light re Guendouzi…it’s not a coincidence that our midfield is trash whoever he plays with….infact,one of the reasons for unai’s downfall was ditching the xhaka torreira midfield in favour of shoe horning guen.Xhaka isnt my cup of tea either but let’s face it,as it stands that’s our best mf pivot.Guen came in yesterday and the midfield just collapsed,gaps everywhere…when Frankfurt scored the guy was marking air.I hope Freddy realises this and fixes it and I wish him all the best,let’s back him.

bennydevito

So Mourinho himself confirms no meeting with Raul ever took place.

Would explain why there were no pictures or evidence of the supposed dinner.

https://www.goal.com/en/news/it-is-not-true-tottenham-boss-mourinho-denies-reports-of-arsenal-/6xzjpa903oii1rf3cyqy2dnc0

bennydevito

Freddie possibly bringing Gilberto Silva in as part of his coaching team.

Freddie, Pires, Bould, Mertesacker, add Gilberto, that’s a pretty good core of ex Arsenal players who know the club inside out.

Bring Keown in as well and we’d surely be back playing fluent attacking football with a solid defence.

Things are exciting again.

TheBayingMob

Concur re: Guen-dozy-cunt. Typical that most English fans would love a bit of headless chicken. As long as you run around enough you’ll always be loved. I haven’t been impressed so far!

PhD2020

DissenterNovember 29, 2019 21:23:23 At some point, I really think Emery knew it was over and wanted to get sacked. Some of the personnel decisions he made at the tail end were just shocking. He wanted to get his pay-out and just move on. That the club waited for so long to pull the trigger is the real story. What were they waiting for? ——- Failure of leadership..??!!Something you mentioned in passing recently.Not during Arsene’s time-mind you..And even then,you reduced it to,how could Kroenke sack a legend?And used the fans as a somewhat justifiable argument or benchmark shield,as to how… Read more »

PhD2020

Talking of your Robin(Bumford)-here’s his latest post(s)..Quite funny actually.. Such a snivelling clueless snake,Could not make his meanderings up… Coco-The Clown indeed.. —– J.M. Bapple @afabulousopera6 · 11h @LeGrove Any chance you’d lift my ban, Pete? With Emery’s dismissal we’ve started a new chapter, and I promise to post no more than three times a day. Let me know. ——- .M. Bapple @afabulousopera6 · Nov 28 Blocking or muting all AKBs – how do these people still exist? – as well as anyone who retweets that fake SkySports tweet about Emery being dismissed. #afc #Arsenal —– LMFAO…. Oh dear…… Fake… Read more »

Carts

If Sexy Freddy is able to steady the ship and galvanise this mob through to January then I expect him to stay as Coach till the summer.

I’m not sure we’d really be able to get our main target now, seeing as most coaches and managers seem relatively settled.

Leftsidesanch

Phd you gotta let the Bam obsession go

PhD2020

*Fake news on Emery’s sacking

Tony

And so it begins in the press ramping up their collective click bait. Anyway, let’s hope Freddie can address the slide and find some form of stability to get some decent results for now. I think Poch is not the right fit for us as I”ve previously posted. Brendan Rodgers an early favourite to replace Unai Emery at Arsenal as club chiefs search for Arsene Wenger Mk II… and former Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino is a genuine candidate on exhaustive shortlist Arsenal want to replace Unai Emery with a boss in the mould of Arsene Wenger The Gunners have drawn… Read more »

PhD2020

LeftsidesanchNovember 30, 2019 00:59:00 ——- Not a Bam obsession,just calling out incessant bullshit when you see it. Aligned with the bullying factor, calls for bans, the ignorance,the abuse-and then the manipulative factor after urinating every one off-suddenly he is the victim? It sticks in the craw a bit. And then for him to be proven wrong time and time again,whilst shooting his mouth off in a pointless manner,without rhyme and reason is just laughable and comical at the very least. I think he needs to be checked at some point over a time period of say- five years plus of… Read more »

PhD2020

*PPS
Now,he’s begging to come back-given everything..Funny??!!

Tony

Unsung hero Gilberto is the right DM coaching move going forward.

If Freddie added Bergkamp as well, we’d see a more stable MF relatively quickly.

Get Keown for the defensive coach and we’d have a decent coaching set up.

“Freddie Ljungberg ‘considers appointing fellow Arsenal Invincible Gilberto

Silva to his coaching staff’ after taking charge on temporary basis following dismissal of Unai Emery

Freddie Ljungberg may ask Gilberto Silva to join his coaching staff at Arsenal

The Swede has taken over on a temporary basis following Unai Emery’s sacking
Silva featured along Ljungberg during Arsenal’s Invincible season in 2003-04”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7740467/Freddie-Ljungberg-appoint-fellow-Arsenal-Invincible-Gilberto-Silva-coaching-staff.html

PhD2020

Anyway, personally thinking screw Arsenal until the Kroenke’s get ousted-as in bought out or sell up.Highly unlikely.

Same crap, different day, different week, different month, different year..
There is a constant..Pure and simple.

Tony

At least I won’t be dreading the Norwich game and can have an open mind again to see what Freddie brings to games. The Frankfurt game was going to be my last until Emery had been fired. Still NO! for NES and other agenda driven candidates. I concurred with Charlie’s thinking some time ago that we should go for experience first, such as Allegri, Rafa or even Carlo and then bring in a younger innovative manager, such as Vieira or Arteta. We’ll now have a an insight to the younger manager: Freddie’s management skills for now with it being forced… Read more »

China1

Ok so you’re Freddie going into the Norwich game

This is what I’d do

1) only play out from the back when it feels comfortable and safe. Keep it simple and defenders shouldn’t drop so deep all the time

Formation

——————Leno
Bellerin-holding-Luiz-tierney
————torreira—willock
Pepe————ozil————martinelli
——————-auba

Torreira to sit all game and never get ahead of play

Willock to sit 75% but can start attacks if the opportunity is clear and risk is low

Nelson

I was told that Ljungberg’s specialty is attack and wing play. He’ll need support to coach the defense. I also heard that Steve Bould is a quiet person. I think we need someone who has a strong character to shape up the team. It would be interesting to see who will sit next to FL on Sunday.

Useroz

Would be some scene if Freddie is flanked by Gilberto and Keown….all covered isn’t it

China1

Keown in for defensive coach and clean sheets here were come lol

Those skid marks and cum stains from the last 10 years will be out in a jiffy!

Alex Cutter

“Not a Bam obsession,just calling out incessant bullshit when you see it. Aligned with the bullying factor, calls for bans, the ignorance,the abuse-and then the manipulative factor after urinating every one off-suddenly he is the victim?It sticks in the craw a bit.And then for him to be proven wrong time and time again,whilst shooting his mouth off in a pointless manner,without rhyme and reason is just laughable and comical at the very least.I think he needs to be checked at some point over a time period of say- five years plus of his blogging activity.Check his twitter account..He is worse… Read more »

China1

Fans should be signing Freddie’s name today

We love you Freddie
Although you’ve got no hair
We love you Freddie
Because you really care
We love you Freddie
You’re arsenal through and through

China1

At least AKBs can point to early years success, longevity and daddy issues for their deflections re wenger

But what on earth is Bamfords excuse? What did emery do for us exactly apart from try and seem pleasant?

KAY Boss

Phd let Bamford be.
Hope Freddie gets us playing good football with better results.
Who’s the likely next coach to be hired? I’ve suggested a female coach. Unfortunately, I’ve no one in mind or better put I don’t know much female coaches.

Just Another Customer

So the backroom staff will mainly consist of ex-players especially The Invincibles? Great let them teach the wimpy new gens the real VALUES of Arsenal, the one back in Highbury instead of the soulless Emirates.

Dare I say it, THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN!

Henry Root

Emery’s incompetence was almost biblical in scale . He has damaged the club, the young players, has not improved a single player in the squad .He has mishandled almost every personnel situation he faced and he plays awful, boring, football. He is a no-risk manager who created a kamikaze defence. Pedro sums it up extremely well and points to the future. Gazidis was an awful CEO. He hired Emery and Sanllehi and ruined our finances. He presided over the end days of Wenger who should have gone much sooner, gave the stupid contract to Ozil and stuffed us on the… Read more »

Moray

Let me just say, I couldn’t be happier with Freddie at the helm. I don’t think he’s the man for the job Long term, but if his timing in the position is as good as his timing in the box used to be, then we are in for a treat.

Graham62

Henry Root

No, they don’t.

Graham62

I’m quietly confident that Freddie will do ok.

In fact, I think he will surprise a few people.

Watch this space.

CG

We will know very quickly if Freddie( promising and assertive start from the fotos, I have seen – and NO CLIPBOARDS glued to his arm in any of them) is going to be a competent manager .

If Laca/PEA/Ozil/Pepe all start with Little Legs parked in front of the defence….he will do fine.

Under the Clown – not once did that attacking quartet start together any game.

I also hope- he immediately stops Raul/Vinny traipsing into the locker room.

Edu can. He was an ex player.

But Spivs and clerks should be nowhere near the players sanctuary.

Graham62

CG

Agree.

I’m also intrigued to see how Freddie deals with our defensive frailties, especially our atrocious “playing it out from the back” philosophy.

CG

Be fascinating to see if Freddie at an early stage is a believer in this * ‘pressing’ baloney everyone drones on about – or simply believes in proper balanced, technical, two footed common sense approach soccer?

* a reminder to all the Pressing Advoates on here- we have 12 in just over 35 days coming up.

You can’t ‘press’ in English soccer – the season is too long, too energy sapping and totally counter productive.

Page 1 in English soccer coaching.

Let the bloody ball do the work and always keep things simple.

CG

Graham

“”””I’m also intrigued to see how Freddie deals with our defensive frailties,””””

Cant defend for toffee
So attack with the bit of firepower we have.

Tactics for Sunday

(Play more forward passes than side passes etc..)
Get the early goals and then park the team bus.

Ban Leno for passing the ball 10 yards.

Football is so simple.
Play to your strengths.

Graham62

This idea that a super coach/manager(whoever he/she is) is going to waltz into the club to sort things out and that everything will be hunky dory again, is very naive.

Past achievements are irrelevant if –

1. You don’t understand the league/footballing culture
2. You can’t speak/comprehend the language.
3. You have no feeling for the DNA of the club.
4. You rely on video analysis too much!

That’s why Freddie is an ideal solution.

Tony

Leicester have slapped a £14million compensation fee for Rogers the Mirror has reported.

Rogers made the right P.C. noises saying he’s happy with his exciting project while acknowledging Arsenal are perceived as a bigger club.

Certainly a far better prospect than NES and Poch in my mind.

Gentlebris

‘hope Freddie does well. But shouldn’t be given the job on permanent basis no matter how he performs.’

Even if Freddie proves to be an absolute genius who has more football coaching in his little finger than the whole of Pep, we should still not give him the job?

Great plan.

Bojangles

Poch won nothing. Rogers won nothing. Nuno won nothing. I’d rather try Arteta or even Freddie, let’s see if either one can be a winner.

Bob N16

Bojangles, with the exception of Leicester’s freak year, if you want to win anything you have to be at the one of the biggest, richest clubs. Rodgers was a Gerrard slip away from winning the CL and Poch got a shitty club to the CL final. Both coaches have proven to be excellent managers and are of an age where they’ve still got something to prove. The project of getting a top club like Arsenal to initially getting back competing for trophies would be a challenge for the right person. Much as I’m uncertain about Rodgers taste(self-portrait in his house… Read more »