Emery was always a good manager – But Arsenal were right to replace him

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Morning all.

Everything feels a little flat in Arsenal world. A little lacking in energy.

Probably a mixture of our poor form, no mid-week football and the impending easter weekend. Anyway.

Last night we saw Unai Emery’s Villarreal knock out Bayern Munich.

Emery was never a poor manager. He was in fact my number one choice to replace Arsene Wenger. He ended up just being the wrong man for Arsenal.

In the game we love, it is important to not lose the dressing room – and that goes for any job as well; lose the office and your time as manager is over. Emery lost the dressing room at Arsenal.

Whereas Mikel Arteta stood up to the troublesome players and eventually shipped them out, Emery was unable to do so. Whether this was because he did not have it in his character or had no backing from the senior leadership team above him.

When he was let go on 29th November, Arsenal had just lost at home to Eintracht Frankfurt and won just 4 of our opening 13 games. We were playing without a plan and were sinking fast.

Emery will go on to achieve fantastic things in football. He already has a medal cabinet that rivals most managers across Europe. But it just did not work out for him at Arsenal.

I will never understand why fans spend so much energy on former players and a managers.

Every time one of them does something remotely good, they are on social media pushing their depressing agenda. It must be so tiring for them having that mind set 24/7.

Concentrate on supporting the players and management at Arsenal. Put your energy into being positive and happy. Focusing on others will only get your down.

Talking about backing our players, there is a really good interview with Granit Xhaka set to come out.

I have always been a Xhaka fan and feel he gets an unfair deal from Arsenal fans.

He talks about wanting to stay at Arsenal “until he wins something special”.

He has shown this season his commitment to the team and ability on the pitch.

Playing in an advanced position, he has not let us down this season.

Were Xhaka to stay, I would not be upset.

I would still like us to sign someone additional as we need to replace Mohamed Elneny and with European football in our grasp we will need a deeper squad.

Youri Tielemans will still be my choice as that would give us the option of playing someone more attacking in midfield to Xhaka in some games.

Tielemans would also be the cover and competition for Martin Odergaard.

Final thought on Emery, it would not be a surprise to see him get another chance at a top club soon. Probably Barcelona or Real Madrid.

Anyway, enjoy your Wednesday!

Keenos

Edu gamble does not pay off

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In January Edu and Mikel Arteta took a risk.

Arsenal’s squad was bloated and haemorrhaging money on wages that were not getting a sniff.

With no European football, out of the League Cup and the early exit to Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup, Arsenal had just 18 games left to play following the Forest defeat.

The opportunity arose to shed some of the wage bill as loan (and transfer) offers came in for players who were clearly surplus to requirements.

Balogun, Kolasinac, Chambers, Mari and Maitland-Niles had started just 8 Premier League between them, with only Maitland-Niles making a start since August.

If “surplus to requirements” was in the dictionary, a picture of all 5 would be next to the definition.

Letting all 5 go was a gamble, but probably the right move.

Balogun clearly needed game time to develop ahead of next season; whilst the senior 5 had sat patiently for 6 months (and longer for some) without really contributing.

Kolasinac, Chambers, Mari and Maitland-Niles needed a move away for the sake of their own careers, their own states of mind.

None of the 5 were replaced in the squad. And at the time there were very few complaints that none had been replaced.

It still left Arteta with 2 right backs, 3 central defenders and two left backs to pick from. Maybe one player light, but with just 18 games to play it did not feel like a huge gamble.

Takehiro Tomiyasu’s never ending muscle strain and Kieran Tierney’s now-predictable end of season injury have left us without our first choice left backs.

Cedric Soares has stepped up admirably at right-back, but Nuno Tavares has collapsed mentally on the left hand side.

Despite us having 7 players that have regularly played full back on the books (Kolasinac, Chambers, Maitland-Niles alongside Tomiyasu, Cedric, Tavares, Tierney and Bellerin), we are now short at full back.

With Tierney’s injury, just one of those still being at the club would have resolved the issues we had against Brighton.

Keeping Maitland-Niles feels like it would have been the most logical move – he could have covered left back, right back and the middle of the park.

But we have messed around the Englishman’s career in the last 2 years. He has gone from 5 caps for England to not even being in the conversation.

It would have been unfair on his career had we kept him “just in case” with no guarantee of football. And we could not have predicted Tavares’s collapse!

The biggest risk they took was up top.

I still back the decision to let Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leave.

He had not performed for 18 months and his behaviour had become detrimental to the side.

Edu and his team had their list of replacement strikers. They went hard for Dusan Valhovic but were not able to secure the deal.

They had others on the list – the likes of Dominic Calvert Lewin and Alexander Isak – but a deal could not be done for either. In the end Edu took the risk and decided to sign no-one, rather than end up with a striker that we did not really want.

This was the right decision, but one that has not come off.

The boost in performance of Alexandre Lacazette is now over and he is looking out of form and out of puff. His back up Eddie Nketiah – surely now deserves a chance; but he will not resolve our issues.

Auba has been in sparkling form since joining Barcelona. This was predictable. He is that sort of player that will do it somewhere for a bit before becoming distracted.

Tottenham have turned their form around – led mainly in part to their January signings.

Rodrigo Bentancur has been a solid addition in the middle of the park whilst Dejan Kulusevski has quickly found his feet.

Edu decided to “keep his powder dry” in January and not sign someone that he or Arteta were not completely sold on.

This decision might have saved Arsenal millions down the line (it could have left us with a Lucas Perez situation); but in the short term it is likely to have cost us Champions League football.

Europa League was always the target this summer.

Edu will claim the risk has paid off if we finish top 6. We then build in the summer on the youngest squad in Europe.

But there will be a nagging thought that had we pushed for a new striker in January – regardless of if he was 1st or 6th choice – we might still be in pole position for Champions League football.

On the back of 2 defeats, it feels like a risk that has not paid off.

Keenos

Arteta needs to take blame for Brighton defeat

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If the Palace defeat was deja-vu; the loss to Brighton was deja-shite.

Up until the last 5 minutes it was the worst I had seen us play in a long, long time. Arguably our worst performance since Covid reared it’s ugly head.

Mikel Arteta got it wrong.

Moving Granit Xhaka to left back not only made us less effectual on that side but also removed our best link from defence to attack.

Arsenal struggled to transition the ball from defence to attack; whilst also simultaneously not having any cover for the back four. It was a horrendous performance.

Arteta should have backed Nuno Tavares. You have to wonder what the future holds in store now for the Portuguese full-back.

Brighton at home – easiest game left – we should have been attacking. Moving Xhaka to full back was a defensive move.

During the game Xhaka understood the frailties and pushed himself more centrally and further up the field as the game went on. But it was to little to late.

To lose Thomas Partey was tough. To then move Xhaka away from the centre was the nail in our coffin for top 4.

Whilst Arteta will hopefully learn from what happened Saturday, the result was costly for our top four hopes.

It is still in our hands. There is still hope. But it is diminishing.

Keenos