Maybe the problem wasn't Wenger, but the parkas.
This past Sunday, Arsenal lost 3-1 to Manchester City. It dropped Arsenal to 6th place in the Premier League. It was the 21st consecutive time that Arsenal had played an away game against one of the PL's other "top six" teams -- also including Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, but not, of course, including themselves -- and failed to win. Played 21, lost 14, drawn 12, won exactly none.
Changing the manager from Arsène Wenger to Unai Emery this past offseason has not changed that: 4 of those 21 have been this season, under Emery.
Many of the games that Arsenal have lost or drawn under Emery are due to his refusal to play certain players. He leaves midfielder Mesut Özil, one of the best players in the world, on the bench -- sometimes, off the team sheet entirely. He has 2 world-class forwards in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, but he often does not start both -- and, when he does, he usually, as was the case on Sunday, doesn't start Özil to provide them with the best possible passing.
A small but loud and obnoxious minority of Arsenal fans believed that all that needed to happen was for Wenger to go and for a new manager, not old and set in his ways, to come in. Wenger is 69, Emery is 47.
It hasn't worked out that way. Instead, Emery is following the pattern he set at Paris Saint-Germain, of alienating his best player (in the case of PSG, Brazilian superstar Neymar), and the team underachieves as a result.
His failure has begun to be noticed. Over the weekend, I saw some tweets from reasonable Arsenal fans objecting to his team selection. I'll leave the names of the Twitterers out:
"You can't keep sending a team out each week with a different formation and expect any fluency. There may be injuries but this team is not functioning because the manager's strategy and tactics are all over the place."
"Do we have the players to stick to a certain style? In my opinion we don't. We need to make tactical changes and prepare for certain sides. Do we need to change it that often? Also don't think so... "
"No defined patterns of play whatsoever so hard for the players to find any sort of consistency"
"He needs more players to beat Cardiff comfortably at home. An impossible task I get it"
And that was before Sunday's game against Manchester City.
The argument is that Özil "doesn't fit Emery's system." Well, apparently, Alex Iwobi does, and these same fans are heaping abuse on Iwobi, who, while talented, just hasn't made it happen at Arsenal. Yet.
If Alex Iwobi fits your system, and Mesut Özil doesn't, you change your system. If you don't, you're the problem.
"Give him time," Emery's supporters say. Most of those were people who refused to give Wenger any more time.
How much more time should we give Emery? To the end of this season? Do you want to finish 8th?
How much more time should we give Emery? Yet another full season? Do you want to be in a relegation scrap?
How much more time should we give Emery? A 3rd full season? Where would you rather spend a Tuesday evening: In a major European city, or Bristol?
The success of former Manchester United player Ole Gunnar Solskjær in reviving that team after firing the much-accomplished, but past-it, manager Jose Mourinho proves that you don't need to give a failing manager more time.
You don't need 3 full seasons to turn a team around. You don't need 2. You don't need 1. You just need one game. Start Özil, and the team will start winning again.
With 2 exceptions, both intended to give Reggie a day's rest down the stretch, Billy started Reggie every game for the rest of the season. In every start, Billy batted Reggie 4th. The Yankees went on to win the World Series.
Unai, play Mesut all 90 minutes, every League game, or you deserve to be fired.
It remains to be seen whether Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke -- perhaps still bummed out over his Los Angeles Rams' capitulation to the New England Patriots in that other game played this past Sunday -- or whoever he has in place to make such a decision will do the right thing.
But the right thing is this: Make Emery play Özil every League game, or fire him.
Arsenal cannot afford to fuck around with this any longer.
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