Unai Emery misses the mark with comments about his Arsenal tenure

2 months since getting the sack, former Arsenal manager Unai Emery has spoken out multiple times about his tenure at the North London club.

Unai Emery is not a well-liked man amongst Arsenal fans. His tenure at the club started promisingly, but ended awfully, as the Spaniard was unable to prevent a downward spiral that started near the end of his debut season, when Arsenal failed to qualify for the Champions League despite being in pole position to do so, and got hammered by Chelsea in the Europa League final.

That poor form seeped into the 2019-20 season as well, which led to his sacking just before December.

It’s safe to say that he’s not a well-liked man at Arsenal, and his recent comments about the club aren’t going to reverse that anytime soon.

When speaking to Get French Football News, Emery claimed that “Arsenal was a club on a downward slope for two years before I arrived”.

While this may be true, Emery went on to make multiple different excuses for his poor performance as Arsenal manager, citing attitude issues among star players and losing leadership in the summer window as 2 major reasons why the Gunners were unable to consistently win matches, particularly in the first few months of the 2019-20 season.

https://twitter.com/footballdaily/status/1226915561705234432

To finish the rant, Emery pointed out that Arsenal have not been successful since he left, which is an implication of him not being the main issue at the club.

Emery has a point to some of the things he’s saying, but his analysis is rather thin and short-sighted.

His job as the manager was to prevent this decline, and it became obvious very quickly that he was out of his depth in a job so massive – similar to his PSG tenure. He failed to put enough blame upon himself, and for that, his comments are foolish. He was given plenty of financial resources to improve the club, and he still failed to do so. His brand of football was also bordering disgraceful at times, and these are things that the fans will not forget anytime soon.

To point out Arteta and Ljungberg’s struggles is also very off-the-mark from Emery, as it was he who made most of the mess that they are now being forced to mop up.

If Unai Emery can’t see that his gross mismanagement of the players at Arsenal was the biggest issue with his tenure at the club, then that’s a personal problem for him to sort out.

The Gunners under Arteta, both individually and collectively, have looked far more positive, energetic, and in-sync than they did throughout all of 2019 under Unai Emery, who can most certainly be blamed for the Gunners’ downward spiral. There are serious signs of improvement these days, and the results will surely follow suit at some point.