Unai Emery at Arsenal: a failure or a victim of circumstance?،
Unai Emery is enjoying so much success as Aston Villa manager – most recently with Wednesday's 1-0 win over Manchester City – that some are beginning to re-evaluate his previous spell in England at Arsenal, where he saw himself give the difficult task. to follow Arsène Wenger.
In the summer of 2018, the Spanish coach was hired to replace Wenger, who had fallen from legend to lament during a nearly 22-year tenure. What followed was a mixed bag.
Emery recorded what is now the third highest winning percentage in the club's history (55%) and reached a Europa League final, but he left in November 2019 with his reputation in tatters, mocked for his imperfect English and ridiculed as incompatible with the requirements. of Premier League football.
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Yet since taking over from Steven Gerrard at Villa Park in October last year, Emery has transformed Aston Villa to a breathtaking extent, rehabilitating his reputation and establishing him as one of the best managers in the division.
Only Manchester City (83) and Arsenal (77) have taken more points than Villa's 75 in the 2023 calendar year. Clever transfer deals combined with a clear tactical plan and triggering improvement in several existing players – most obviously striker Ollie Watkins – catapulted Villa into the Champions League places ahead of Emery's former side's visit to the Midlands on Saturday.
Emery facing his Arsenal successor, Mikel Arteta, in this restored state has led some to wonder whether the 52-year-old was treated harshly at the Emirates. So was the task too big for him, or did the club let him down in difficult circumstances?
Sources have told ESPN that Emery impressed the Arsenal hierarchy during his interview to succeed Wenger with an in-depth knowledge of the club's academy players, opening up specific paths to the first team for some individuals. The level of detail in his presentation was a key factor in getting Arteta the job, alongside a track record of Europa League success with Sevilla – winning the competition in three successive seasons between 2014 and 2016 – and c This is how it happened. as a surprise in the weeks and months that followed how poor his communication skills were.
Emery conducted his media interviews with a translator who sat alongside him, but insisted on trying to speak English to his new team at all times, often during lengthy video analysis meetings, which was rare during the Wenger's tenure.
At first, the message got through. After starting with two defeats against Manchester City and Chelsea, Emery embarked on a 22-match unbeaten run. Gunners fans chanted “We've got our Arsenal back” during an away win at Fulham as football returned.
There was a momentum that would carry them through to the final five games of the season, where they picked up just four points to miss out on the top four to local rivals Tottenham Hotspur – a collapse that Emery ultimately never recovered from. handed over. A Europa League final clash with Chelsea offered salvation – and the chance to win silverware – but Arsenal were beaten 4-1.
Despite breaking his club record by signing Nicolas Pépé from Lille for £72million in the summer of 2019, the positive effect Emery had initially created continued to dissipate at an alarming rate and, in November, after no wins in seven games, their worst on the job since 1992 — Emery was fired.
The atmosphere at the end was toxic. Wenger abhorred conflict, but this allowed cliques to form in his final seasons and Emery had to tackle them. However, little by little, they stopped listening. The gym he had set up pitchside to give players the chance to increase the intensity of training sessions was barely used.
Sources told ESPN that some players made fun of Emery's English skills on the training pitch. Others thought these video analysis sessions were now almost torturous.
Inadvertently, Bukayo Saka had exposed Emery's inability to express himself effectively. After making his second senior start against Eintracht Frankfurt in September 2019, Saka revealed that coach Freddie Ljungberg had been more influential because “sometimes when I don't understand when the coach tries to communicate with me, I I sometimes have better communication with Freddie, he speaks better English.
Emery spent much of this second season with an English professor attending his press conferences, but apparently to little effect. And several sources suggest he didn't make the effort to curry favor with staff. Sources told ESPN that six months after taking office, he ended a session by thanking a colleague by calling him the wrong name. When the fixture schedule permitted, he often returned to his hometown of Hondarribia rather than remaining local to the club.
The gradual erosion of Emery's authority led him to make endless changes in team selection. During his final season at Arsenal, he used more players (35) and made more half-time substitutions (32) than any other Premier League manager, with formations and personnel changing alarmingly. It seemed he was struggling to find the answers as the power of the locker room consumed him, just as it had in his previous role at Paris Saint-Germain.
And yet subsequent history suggests that the locker room may well have been part of the problem. Arteta took over from Emery in December 2019, won the FA Cup final nine months later and proceeded to ruthlessly dismantle the team, with the club paying off the contracts of several players early, including Mesut Özil, Willian and Shkodran Mustafi , to rid the team of difficult characters. .
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was stripped of his captaincy and allowed to join Barcelona while Arteta was 'promoted' from head coach to manager to give him greater influence over the future direction of the club. How Emery should have wished to receive the same support. Maybe if he had won the Europa League or finished in the top four, he would have done it. Arteta had the FA Cup as tangible proof that he could succeed.
But Emery also suffered from circumstances beyond his control, mainly from the power struggle that existed after Wenger. Wenger's autonomy had been quietly stripped from him as then-general manager Ivan Gazidis sought to restructure a club too reliant on one man towards a more modern setup, appointing nine department heads to report to a new hierarchy.
The number of agents responsible for football operations has tripled in three years. And then, in September 2018, when Emery had barely a month of competitive football at Arsenal, Gazidis announced his departure to join AC Milan.
With the owners, the Kroenke family, still largely absent, the new owners have tested the parameters to the limits. Recruiting became an issue due to internal tensions between those who wanted to use data analysis to generate signatures and others preferring to rely on long-standing relationships with particular agents.
Transfer politics became muddled and Emery undermined his influence by pushing for the disastrous loan signing of Denis Suárez in January 2019. By the time he pushed for Wilfried Zaha over Pépé the following summer, his judgment was in question in question.
Raul Sanllehi joined the club as Head of Football Relations in February 2018, became Director of Football following Gazidis' departure and left suddenly in August 2020. Sven Mislintat joined the club as Head of Recruitment in December 2017 and left in February 2019 amid disputes over transfer planning. Former Arsenal midfielder Edu Gaspar became technical director in July 2019 and the club has quietly returned to a simpler decision-making model with Josh Kroenke now regularly engaged, based in London, and the former club captain Per Mertesacker to head the academy. But all this came too late for Emery, who became a victim of the instability above and below him.
“With Arsenal you had to knock down the walls first, which is hard work, and then start building again,” Emery would later tell The Athletic.
He arrived at Arsenal as “King of the Europa League”, but left after a 2-1 group stage defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt. The following season, he won the Europa League for a fourth time, with Villarreal, before returning to England as a better manager for his experiences.
Newcastle United wanted to appoint Emery but he said no. Instead, he accepted Villa's call and will stand on the touchline this weekend in a bid to damage his former club's title ambitions. At Villa Park, he seems at home. At Arsenal he was probably the wrong man at the wrong time.
