It is a question that has to be asked, Is Unai Emery fast running out of time at Arsenal?
Some will say that the season is just five games old and that we have to be patient while others will say that over the last 12 Premier League games there have been just four wins and five losses.
Add into that run of games the Europa League final humiliation against Chelsea and the picture no longer looks so rosy and certainly rebuts the argument that it is too early in the season to judge the Spaniard.
Emery’s detractors will claim that there is no vision, no strategy, that his team selections are random nonsense, that his substitutions have largely been ineffective, that his persistence with certain players show his judgement to be flawed and his tactics are confusing.
Whereas his supporters will say that the team is in transition, that patience is required, that new players have yet to bed in, that he has been unlucky with injuries and that if it was not for player errors last season Arsenal would now be in the Champions League.
In better words, there are two clearly defined positions, one that he is out of his depth and has no clue what he is doing and the opposing position is that he is halfway through this project and it will all come good in the end.
It is difficult to take one side over the other, both sides of the debate have excellent points, the season is still very young and Emery has been unlucky with injuries but at the same time, the buck does stop with the coach and based on current results it is not looking good.
One thing is for certain unless performances and results improve the question will not go away.
Yes, he is.
This team should be performing. Matter of fact, we haven’t performed in ANY of our PL games so far:
Newcastle, struggled but managed to win
Burnley, major struggle but managed to win
Pool, outplayed – no chance to win
Spurs, no chance to win – lucky to draw AT HOME
Watford, outplayed and managed to blew our lead
The board sacked an underperforming manager who was here for 20 years. Emery won’t be given so long.
Let Emery go… he’s already proving to be another failure.
You are making sense my brother,Emery must go he is no good for our team
92 shots conceded in our first 5 games ..
Derby county 87 shots conceded in 2007-2008 season after 5 games .the worst team in premiership history .
This is coming from a manager who likes to set up defensively ..
Last season was a bedding in season for him this season he needed to hit the ground running and we look worse than last season .
12 players signed since he took charge so no more of this isn’t his team .
Personally I would get rid now before it’s too late and stick someone in charge till the end of the season ,it not like they can do any worse .
The football I’m seeing form us just makes me not want to watch us ,it’s that painful on the eye .
I doubt the club will sack him though till the seasons over so we are probably stuck with this drab football till next season and by then it will be too late ,half the team will wanna leave and the other half won’t be good enough .
Dan, i do think alike, i feel another draw or loss and the man needs to be sacked. Flores had the desire to win, played some good football, had he good clinical players it would be a 5-2 trashing. No More excuses, Unai deserves the boot should we under perform the next game
The problem is always the coach, bad tactics,bad formation,bad xi,can you believe luiz conceded 2 pk in 3 apps at arsenal,it took him 160 games to concede 2 at chelsea,why because the way we play invites too much pressure.
the coach needs To go,bring in ALLEGRI.
The earlier we replace this clown with Freddie the better for our sanity
My patience has well & truly left the building.. how many more times are we expected to sit through garbage like that yesterday? The same mistakes over & over again… and we never learn from them! I don’t see any other team gifting goals like we do.. we were outplayed & outmuscled by bottom of the league – let that sink in…
I know it’s easy to say now, but why was Torreira on the bench? As much as i love Guendouzi, he worried me yesterday.. and his 2-1 gesture to the fans came back to bite him, didn’t it?
I know City had an off day & lost to Norwich, but at least they’ll learn from that & put it right in their next game… i really wish i could say the same about us!
5 games in and it’s a complete mess
Sue the faults is not in torrera not starting the problem started immediately that clown of a manager removed our best attacking player Ceballos and replaced him with wilock in the 60th minute, substitute gueondouzi in the 67th minute and ozil in the 71th minute for that useless player Nelson, as bad as ozil may be he should never be substituted for Nelson. I mean how can a coach do all those kind of stupid substitution in the space of 18minutes.
I know, Lenohappy.. but I’d rather Torreira start, as at least he provides some steel in midfield.
It was so easy for Watford to waltz through our midfield yesterday…
God only knows what Emery was thinking.. Nelson was awful when he came on.. at least Willock ran at them..but yes, shocking substitutions.. which made me think Emery really didn’t want those 3 points!
Sue at least we have some positive yesterday which is auba, he already has 5goals,at least we can boast of having the golden boot winner lol.
I agree on Auba ,but how long is it till he thinks enough is enough ,he’s in his 30s now I would imagine he will want to retire Trying to be competitive not playing ThursDy night football against some loacal farmers from a tiny village in Russia
The only bright spark, Lenohappy
Unai is obviously a worse version of Arsene.
I have tried to understand what brand of football he plays but cant.
Anybody saying its still early doesn’t know nothing.
Unai has nothing to offer arsenal, simple.
He is a very good example of confusion.
The new dictionary synonym for confusion is simply ” Unai Emery.
No. Not at all.
We should give him to the end of the season. If we don’t finish in the Top 4 or win trophies. Then yes. I will agree to fire him. In fact if we get worse I will even agree in January
But we can’t fire him after 5 matches in his 2nd season
I spent 6 years in the Wenger Out brigade
I’m not joining the Emery Out brigade yet.
Give him to at least January to sort the situation out
And as for Allegri. Forget about it. It’s not happening. I was calling for Allegri when Wenger left. I wasn’t thrilled that we got Emery at the time. But I’m in favour of giving him more time
Innit, I agree. Emery will be assessed at the end of this season and if management doesn’t accept the performance achieved his contract will not be extended, as Arsenal holds the option.
Allegri will not come to the EPL, because of the language barrier, let alone Arsenal won’t meet his financial requirements for salary plus transfer budget.
The answer to the title of this piece is an emphatic YES
Never ever believed in Unai Emery!
A coach who threw a 4-goal first leg lead away to lose 6-1 could never inspire me even if the opponent was Barcelona at Nou Camp.
Not with the caliber of players at PSG at the time, a very weak domestic competition in Lihue 1 and a full week to prepare for the game.
By the way, I was really frightened by the quality of our bench at Watford. Is that the bench of a top four contender?
I just hope we have not shot our selves in the foot in the hurry to offload “deadwood”.
I’m afraid!
I am not the kind of fan that usually say bad things about our players but am done with Niles, the boy is just so annoying and so useless, I get why we sold iwobi but to believe me we sold him because of Nelson is an embarrassment to our club, the boy played 20minutes+ and didn’t for once beat a player, its been a long time since am this frustrated about arsenal.
You are best
They won’t sack him yet,we are not that type of club,I think they should if we are still struggling come xmas and performances are still poor,you have to say his team selections and the playing out from the back tactic is so bad that you cannot see that improving with the current players occupying the back four,I feel for Leno with this shower in front of him but yes he will be on borrowed time if these sort of performances become the norm.
Let us give him time till january when the result are still bad we have to fire him
Unfortunately he will stay till at least the end of the season. Josh Kroenke likes him, wouldn’t be surprised if we finish outside of top 4 and yet he will be the coach next year.
When we lose the ball, it’s shocking how bad we are at that point and Emery either doesnt see it or just doesnt know how to fix it.
Another frustrating season coming up, ugh.
Er the performance we gave yesterday is now the norm for Arsenal under this coach. No point in wasting time. I have seen enough. You can no longer deny the evidence. If we wait till Christmas it will be too late to salvage the season and our best players will want out, leaving just dross who no one will buy. Emery’s time is already up.
The coach is good but the problem is defence which has been a problem even the time for arsen,,,so he should choose serious players who can not cost a team but manage good results,,,all in all he should always be forcus when substituting players…
Man Sheiki 9 years. 5 billon spend. PL Titles 4.
Chelski 16 seasons. 2 billion spend. PL 5 titles.
Liverpool since Klopp. 4 years. 400 mill spend. PL Titles 0.
Spurs 5 years. Genius manager top players. PL Titles 0
Arsenal Experienced Manager. Last 14 years PL Titles 0
Man Utd since Fergie. 6 years,4 Managers 750m spend. PL Titles 0.
To be fair to Unai if he managers till 2032 and wins 3 FA Cups and a Comm shield he will be on par with Wenger’s last 14 years 🙂
Something tells me it gonna take more than team selection, and practising playing out from the back to win the League ha ha ha 🙂
If Emery keeps coaching the way he is doing and you keep showing your back to him as support. I guess he won’t even get a chance to see how the FA cup looks. Not in 2032. Even by 200032. Emery won’t or can’t or never be as good as Wenger was. You can hate Wenger all you want but you know you can’t change or achieve anything he is done .
I dare anyone to come on here and defend Emery and give reasons why. He was a bad appointment, someone who couldn’t speak English, hasn’t got a style and doesn’t know how to handle players. His main objective in every game is not to lose. We should be going out with the main objective being to win. The football is bland, there is no movement off the ball, we used to ping passes around, now we pass to the opposition. Pepé must be wondering what sort of club he’s joined. He’s a good player but looks like he’s never been told our system, but, we don’t have a system. We are in a terrible situation and he needs removing with Freddie taking over, at least in the short term, until things change and/or we appoint someone who knows how to manage. We are fast becoming a mid table team with statistics of a relegation team.
#EmeryOut.
We are an absolute mess at the minute. Emery has picked up this season where he left off. He has better players, but he’s just as confused about the system he wants to play, and he’s totally out of his depth on how to fix our chronic issues. The job is hard, yes. But what top job isn’t? Did we not hire a coach? Did we not hire a master tactician who could out-think the opposition?
Why can’t Arsenal fire Emery? Watford fired their manager, other teams do as well. It’s clear Emery is underachieving, club has spent well over £100 million to back him and he can’t get results.
No style under Emery, tactics fail, and hasn’t fixed leaky defense in 16 months. Deadwood coach who’s time has come. Arsenal DNA is non-existant with Emery.
Seville level coach who failed at PSG and drowning at another big club with Arsenal.
And Thomas Tuchel is doing so much better at PSG than Emery?
Leno has obviously been instructed to play short balls from goal kicks, to ‘play out’. When you are pressed and do that you factually amplify the football odds to give free goals away. Plus you are allowing the opposition to ‘park’ in your half. It does not suit AMN, Socratis, Luiz OR Kolasinac and pressurises our midfield. Bizarre at the deepest level. The players are being asked to play a method that will give ALL other teams the chance of goals against us. No other team plays that way…and I mean, no other team, because sometime a team CANNOT. SACK Emery NOW, before we cannot change how we play. Emery is lost in a methodology and mythology that even Barca have left behind. MADNESS. Emery OUT.
WHY cant any one see IF you CANT Defend you will WIN Nothing.
Why do they persist with getting old so called experienced defenders.
Get Quality and see the difference.
He is not going anywhere for a long time.
Unai Emery is not the kind of coach we need at Arsenal. He has no philosophy and is overly reactive to other teams strength and style of play. He needs to play a more creative brand of football with the attack that we have and impose ourselves and style especially on the weaker teams. Simply,play to our strengths. He knows the frailties of the defense, yet he has done nothing to improve it.I am used to an Arsenal team that has over 60% possession against lesser teams, not this rubbish of conceding 30 shots at us in one game. Emery must get it right in the next game onwards or be sacked. He’s too cautious, focusing only on the opponents approach to games. Sorry, I forgot, Emery does not have a football philosophy.
It’s not the time to say I told you so, but Emery was a bad appointment, which was evident at the same stage last year, and we all can see what he has done with the team. It’s a mess all around – last season he tried to make Ramsey, Kolasinac & Iwobi as playmakers as if to spite Ozil. He expects bits & pieces players to run the midfield and yesterday just when Ozil and Ceballos were building up a good partnership, roaming the midfield with intelligent switching of the flanks, he takes off Ceballos in the 60th min. Then replaces Ozil with Reiss and God knows what the hell Emery was thinking. Soon after Ceballos was taken off, Ozil wasn’t getting the ball which resulted in Auba not getting supply. Still Ozil did manage a defence splitting pass and Auba fluffed it. In the first half Pepe overran a through ball, and yet some people say Ozil is an useless player. He is a form player who needs time on the pitch and if Emery makes his players play through him, the front three will get the assists.
As for Wenger bashing, based on his last two years, it’s insane to run down a legend 16 months after he is gone, but I’m sure that with this team he’ll be making us smile with Arsenal way of playing.
For me, there is no doubt that Emery will not lead us to the promised land. It was always going to be hard for a manager to come into this club, take over from a legend (albeit a tainted one) and deal with a very awkward squad. A few great players (laca, Auba) a few decent players and too many “not good enough” players.
Having said that, the squad has been improved. Whether we like Luiz or not we have improved the squad with Pepe (although he has yet to prove himself fully) and Ceballos and hopefully Tierney will porve a good singing as well.
What the manager can’t fail to hide is that he has not managed to get the squad he has to play better, to defend better, to press better. We are not playing better than last season and last season we got worse as the season progressed. With the right manager, you would expect to see an improving line over time and to see persistent issues addressed.
To me, this manager has shown poor judgement in tactics, team selection and in the fact he has not given his team a chance to master one way of playing by always changing how we play and with which players we play. He tinkers too much.
I like the manager as a human being and he can’t be accused of a lack of trying but be sure he is not going to improve us much.
A good manager manages to improve whatever squad he inherits. has Emery done that? Not in my eyes. Will he do that, unlikely.
The other teams must be loving our farcical play out of defence. Completely undermines the confidence of the team when we inevitably give it away. For gods sake vary it a bit to suit conditions. Like a bunch of amateurs
What is this coach football philosophy,what is his style of football,this team has no identity it reflects it leader
Emery is no football manager when he replaces good players then leaves Xhaka who does not Break sweat and is possibly the worst footballer I have ever seen.
Emery is a useless manager…he is not an arsenal like coach…is Nelson a player that should be playing for arsenal? An overrated British player…next season if we continue like this auba n laca may look elsewhere for glories