The Emery experiment was a spectacular failure. But then, given the circumstances, almost anyone would have been a failure after Arsène Wenger.
There's an old saying: You don't want to be the guy who follows the legend, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows the legend, so people can say, "He's not the legend, but at least he's not that guy!"
From 1996 to 2006, Wenger led Arsenal to 3 Premier League titles (in 1998, 2002 and 2004), just missed 2 others (in 1999 and 2003), 4 FA Cups (in 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2005), including twice winning both in the same year (in 1998 and 2002, known as "doing The Double"), an undefeated League season in 2003-04, and the Final of both the UEFA Champions League (in 2006) and the UEFA Europa League (in 2000, then known as the UEFA Cup).
Then the team moved out of its old (1913) 38,000-seat Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, and moved a few blocks away into the new 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium. In order to pay off the stadium debt, Wenger's superiors couldn't spend big on great new players, so Wenger went with a youth movement, hoping to replicate the success of his 1st 10 years.
It didn't work, for various reasons, including some nasty injuries, some horrifyingly bad officiating (whether incompetent or corrupt doesn't really matter), opposing teams suddenly getting rich (West London team Chelsea and Manchester City joining the already-wealthy Liverpool and Manchester United), and some highly-touted kids just not working out.
A big reason was some highly-touted kids thinking that they had worked out enough, and that they didn't need Wenger anymore, and that they should now go for the big money at wealthier teams. And so, they stabbed Wenger, and by extension all Arsenal fans, in the back. We will not mention their names here, because they do not deserve the attention.
In the last 5 seasons before Wenger, Arsenal finished, in the 20-team Premier League, 4th, 10th, 4th, 12th and 5th. In his 1st 10 seasons, they finished 3rd, 1st, a close 2nd, a distant 2nd, a distant 2nd, 1st, a distant 2nd, 1st, a distant 2nd, and 4th. From 2006-07 to 2012-13, they finished 4th, 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 3rd and 4th -- with 4th being enough to qualify for the Champions League.
Some fans began to get angry that this was no longer enough. They wanted Wenger to "challenge" for the PL and CL titles, not just be in them. The 2011 League Cup Final, which Arsenal lost to Birmingham City due to a late mixup, was the beginning of the Wenger Out Brigade, or WOB. They wanted Wenger to "spend some fucking money" on "world-class" players; or, if he wouldn't, resign; or, if he wouldn't do that either, for team ownership to fire (or, in English parlance, "sack") him.
Early in the 2013-14 season, Wenger spent some money on a world-class player: Mesut Özil. Arsenal would win the FA Cup in 2014, 2015 and 2017, giving Wenger 7 FA Cup wins, more than any other manager -- almost more than any other team.
But, for some fans, this still wasn't enough. Arsenal were leading the Premier League in January 2014, but the annual injury crisis and some what-the-hell officiating hit, and they finished 4th, and these idiots said Wenger "bottled it" (blew it). Arsenal were neck-and-neck with surprising Leicester City until March 2016, but finished 2nd, and these idiots said Wenger bottled it.
In 2016-17, the wheels came off. Alexis Sánchez, who seemed to be a great acquisition for the 2014-15 season, was now exposed as a player who gave the ball away 20 times a game, turning him from a goalscoring threat to a net liability. And his attitude got worse and worse, to the point where he became, in American sports slang, a clubhouse cancer. Arsenal finished 5th, the 1st time not qualifying for the following seasons's Champions League under Wenger. Wenger sold Alexis in the 2018 January transfer window, but the team finished 6th.
The abuse from the entitled, selfish brats, led by the igornant mugs of "Arsenal Fan TV," got worse and worse. The Arsenal organization did little to protect Wenger from this: They successfully sued to push them off the stadium grounds, and to have "Arsenal" taken out of their legal name (they are now "AFTV Media").
But they still claimed to represent all Arsenal fans, and to "give them a voice" that they had never had before, both of which were damnable lies. They sang songs about wanting Wenger to die. They showed up at players' entrances to boo him as he came out of the stadium. They hired a plane to fly a banner over the stadium, reading "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH #WENGER OUT" -- forgetting to leave out the space in the hashtag. They announced that they were going to do this. But they got upstaged by fans supporting him, who, without announcing it beforehand, hired a plane to trail a banner reading "#ONEARSENEWENGER." The 1st plane was booed by most of the fans. The 2nd plane was cheered.
The WOB shouted, "We want our Arsenal back!" Which Arsenal is that? The Arsenal that won trophies? Wenger brought them that.
Did they mean Arsenal before Wenger? George Graham, a fine player on their 1971 "Double" team, managed them to League titles in 1989 and 1991, and both domestic cups in 1993. He also won the 1994 European Cup Winners' Cup, and the WOB pointed out that he had won a European trophy, while Wenger hadn't.
They forget that the Cup Winners' Cup doesn't even exist anymore: UEFA thought it so devoid of meaning, its qualifiers (the winners of each European country's FA Cup equivalent) were put into the UEFA Cup instead, starting with the 1999-2000 season. (It became the Europa League in 2010-11.) Graham never came close to winning the Champions League, or the European Cup as it was known until 1992 (and the trophy is still so named).
Graham notably had an all-English defensive back four. (Sometimes, goalkeeper David Seaman was included, to make it an all-English back five.) These fans said that Wenger only won because he inherited Graham's back four/five.
Graham's back four/five finished 10th in 1993, and were 14th in February 1995 when Graham was fired -- not for losing, but for financial improprieties. They ended up 12th. Wenger made them Double winners in 1998. Graham never won the Double, coming within an FA Cup Semifinal in 1991. Then Wenger replaced all four, and won another Double in 2002. Then he replaced Seaman, and went unbeaten in 2004. Graham never did that, coming within 1 loss in 1991.
In American college football, the classic definition of a great coach is one who can take his team and beat yours, and take your team and beat his. Wenger took Graham's players, made some minor adjustments, and topped Graham's greatest achievements. Then he replaced them, and topped even that.
Still, he was abused. I began to think they hated him simply because he wasn't English. Some of them may have thought Graham was English. He's not: He's Scottish. (Today is his birthday: He's 75, and has been largely forgiven for his sins by Arsenal fans, and is remembered as the only man to be a club legend as a player and a manager.)
They said that any manager could do better than Wenger, if only they would spend more money. I kept telling them, online, it's not how much you spend, it's how wisely. They refused to accept this.
And every time a manager did well elsewhere, they began to demand his hiring in place of Wenger. Most of these got exposed as not good enough. The most oft-cited examples were Pep Guardiola of Spanish team Barcelona and German team Bayern Munich, who took Manchester City to its greatest heights; and Jürgen Klopp of German team Borussia Dortmund, who ended up at Liverpool.
These people ignored the simple facts: They cheat. Dives and dirty tackles are the Barça way. Since they are also the Bayern way -- German fans often refer to "Der Bayern Dusel," or "The Bavarian Luck" -- Bayern also hired him. It has continued at Man City. And Klopp at Liverpool? For 4 years, he came close to trophies, but won none, until Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah began diving all over the place. Last season, they won the Champions League.
Such actions would not work at Arsenal, because referees hate them. Arsenal players have been sent off for cheating, even when visual evidence proves that they didn't. The same tactics would result in sendoffs and suspensions, and those managers would not have massive sums of cash to replace them, and they would be exposed as bad managers.
We just went through the same thing: These same people wanted Jose Mourinho, who turned Chelsea into a great team with massive cheating, but he signed with North London arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur instead, and they are angrier than ever. They forget how Mourinho flopped at Manchester United.
Finally, on April 22, 2018, at the age of 68, Wenger decided that he had had enough. Even his great patience toward the abuse finally came to an end. He resigned after 22 years, with a press release that closed with, "To all the Arsenal lovers, take care of the values of the club. My love and support forever."
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The WOB presumed that the team could overcome anything; and, when it didn't, they felt personally betrayed. So they made it personal against Wenger, then owner Stan Kroenke, and eventually against the remaining Wenger players.
Wenger ended up being replaced by 2 men: Unai Emery as head coach, and Raul Sanllehi as director of football -- in other words, what North American sports fans would call the general manager.
Emery, then age 46, is from the Basque Country of Spain. Once a mediocre midfielder in Spain, he managed in his homeland, Russia and France, including winning 3 Europa League titles with Sevilla (Seville, Spain), and 1 Ligue 1 title and 2 Coupes de France with Paris Saint-Germain.
The WOB got what they wanted: A new manager. The "Arsene Knows Best" people, including myself, a.k.a. the AKB, were willing to give the new manager a chance.
After losing his 1st 2 games, against PL powers Man City and Chelsea, Emery began a 14-game winning streak, which became a 22-game unbeaten streak, which included games in the League Cup and the Europa League.
And the WOB liked that he was always jumping out of his seat like he's been bitten on the ass, and waved his hands in the air as if he's Kermit the Frog, announcing the next act on The Muppet Show. As opposed to Wenger, who would just sit there, and not show emotion or "passion," except maybe to slam his water bottle down on the ground.
The WOB were ecstatic. They said they had "their Arsenal" back.
Then came the annual defensive injury crisis, and Emery did not handle it as well as Wenger did.
On top of this, Emery was showing great disrespect to 3 of his 4 best players: He frequently left Özil off the team sheet entirely, only played forward Alexandre Lacazette for a half (if at all), and did both with midfielder Aaron Ramsey. The other of the 4, forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, played nearly every minute of the Premier League season.
Emery cited "tactical reasons" for leaving Özil out. There was talk that Özil "doesn't fit the system."
Mesut Özil is one of the most accomplished active soccer players -- and rises further up the list when you take out players who have cheated, or have benefited from their teammates' cheating. If he does not fit your system, you change your system. You don't punish your players by leaving your best player out of the lineup completely.
"He has to clean up the mess that Wenger made!" is no excuse. Only an idiot would believe that Wenger left a mess, and only a liar would say so.
Instead, Emery followed the pattern he set at Paris Saint-Germain, the first big team he ran, of alienating his best player (in the case of PSG, Brazilian superstar Neymar), and the team underachieved as a result.
In the end, the 1st season under Emery was a disaster. It is true that the team finished 5th, 1 place higher than they did the season before. And that they amassed 7 points more than they had the previous season (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw). And that they came 11 points closer to qualifying for the next season's UEFA Champions League than they had before, missing it by only 1 point.
In the end, there were 5 games which, if Arsenal had won any 1 of them, they would have qualified for the 2019-20 Champions League. They ended up failing to win any of them: Lost 3-2 at home to South London team Crystal Palace, lost 3-1 away to Birmingham-area team Wolverhampton Wanderers, lost 3-0 away to Leicester, drew 1-1 at home with Sussex team Brighton & Hove Albion, and then, in a game whose winner would qualify for the CL if it hadn't already, lost 4-1 to Chelsea in the Final of the Europa League, on neutral ground, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Emery managed all season long as if the League, even finishing Top 4 in it, was a lost cause -- clearly, it wasn't -- and that the Europa League, which he had won 3 times with Sevilla, making it "his tournament," would be the key. And he ended up completely mismanaging the Final.
He had one job. He had five chances at it. He blew all five.
He should have been fired before he got on the bus to go back to the hotel in Baku.
And then, he let Ramsey go. Juventus of Turin, the biggest team in Italy, signed him. Clearly, they thought he could still play, but Emery didn't.
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Here is what Arsenal needed to do during the Summer 2019 transfer window:
* Find a centreback who would be an upgrade on their weakest one, Shkodran Mustafi.
* Find an attacking midfielder who could properly replace Ramsey.
That's it. Two players. It should have been easy to get them, and still fall within the Arsenal transfer budget, which the English media, frequently stupid and nearly always opposed to Arsenal, said was £45 million.
Then, French centreback Laurent Koscielny, the team Captain, demanded to be transferred. He played 8 seasons under Wenger, and was never a problem (except when he was hurt). But 1 season under Emery, and he couldn't wait to leave.
That's it. Two players. It should have been easy to get them, and still fall within the Arsenal transfer budget, which the English media, frequently stupid and nearly always opposed to Arsenal, said was £45 million.
Then, French centreback Laurent Koscielny, the team Captain, demanded to be transferred. He played 8 seasons under Wenger, and was never a problem (except when he was hurt). But 1 season under Emery, and he couldn't wait to leave.
Now, the team needed 2 competent centrebacks, or else we'd be going into the season with the centrebacks being, in descending order of talent, Rob Holding, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, the error-prone Mustafi, the prospect who never turned out Calum Chambers, and the still-prospect Konstantinos Mavropanos.
If Holding and Sokratis could start 32 out of 38 League games, Arsenal would have been fine. But the team seems to have an injury crisis every season, especially among defenders: Last season, it should have been Hector Bellerin - Koscielny - Holding - Nacho Monreal, but for most games it turned out to be Ainsley Maitland-Niles - Sokratis - Mustafi - Sead Kolasinac.
Sanllehi got 1 centreback, former Chelsea player David Luiz. Luiz is not an upgrade on Mustafi. He is a horrible player. What's more, he dives. He got away with that at Chelsea because team owner Roman Abramovich is a corrupt Russian energy mogul who bribes referees.
Arsenal players don't cheat, not just because it's wrong, but because they wouldn't get away with it. One move by Luiz that even looks like a dive, and he will get sent off, leave us down to 10 men for the rest of the game, and get suspended for the next 3 domestic games.
To make things worse for the defense, Monreal was sold, to Real Sociedad in his native Spain. So now, we needed a left back, too.
The "replacement for Ramsey" is Dani Ceballos, on a 1-year loan from Real Madrid. Seriously? This is like getting George Lazenby to take over from Sean Connery as James Bond. He's not only not as good as Ramsey (few players are), but we'll have to replace him next Summer.
The disappointing Alex Iwobi was sold to Liverpool-based Everton, and overrated forward Danny Welbeck was allowed to play out his contract, and signed with Hertfordshire team Watford. So that was some big wages off the books.
The "replacement for Ramsey" is Dani Ceballos, on a 1-year loan from Real Madrid. Seriously? This is like getting George Lazenby to take over from Sean Connery as James Bond. He's not only not as good as Ramsey (few players are), but we'll have to replace him next Summer.
The disappointing Alex Iwobi was sold to Liverpool-based Everton, and overrated forward Danny Welbeck was allowed to play out his contract, and signed with Hertfordshire team Watford. So that was some big wages off the books.
Left back Kieran Tierney was bought from Glasgow team Celtic, for £25 million, or about 5 times what the best left back in Scotland's league would be worth in England's. He's not better than either Monreal or Kolasinac, nor is he likely to become better than either over the course of the season.
Gabriel Martinelli was bought from Brazilian club Ituano. He's 18, and it will be a long time before he can be a suitable substitute in case Auba or Laca go down.
And Sanllehi broke Arsenal's transfer record -- previously £46.5 million for Lacazette -- by spending £72 million on Nicolas Pépé, a 24-year-old winger from the Ivory Coast and French team Lille, who has never won a trophy.
A lot of Arsenal fans were ecstatic: Not only had the team spent that much money on one player, something Wenger would never have done, but it was on a winger, something they wanted very badly.
They're idiots. Arsenal's tendency for the last 12 years or so, under both Wenger and Emery, was to make about 100 sideways passes before even attempting a shot, wasting time, and then not scoring anyway. The last thing Arsenal needed was more width. But these people refuse to accept this obvious truth.
So the transfer window ended, and, instead of needing 2 players, Arsenal now needed 3. They are worse off than before. And these #WeCareDoYou idiots were saying it's the team's best transfer window ever. They wanted a statue of Sanllehi.
Raul Sanllehi is a deadbeat dad: He bought all kinds of components for a great home entertainment system for his man cave, while the kids need food and new clothes.
And Unai Emery is a buffoon, who does not know how to manage players.
But the idiots still didn't blame Emery or Sanllehi. They blamed Wenger, and whichever of his players were left. They still blamed Wenger for "the mess" that "he put us in." And a player signed by Raul and managed by Unai couldn't possibly be at fault for any dropped points.
Gabriel Martinelli was bought from Brazilian club Ituano. He's 18, and it will be a long time before he can be a suitable substitute in case Auba or Laca go down.
And Sanllehi broke Arsenal's transfer record -- previously £46.5 million for Lacazette -- by spending £72 million on Nicolas Pépé, a 24-year-old winger from the Ivory Coast and French team Lille, who has never won a trophy.
A lot of Arsenal fans were ecstatic: Not only had the team spent that much money on one player, something Wenger would never have done, but it was on a winger, something they wanted very badly.
They're idiots. Arsenal's tendency for the last 12 years or so, under both Wenger and Emery, was to make about 100 sideways passes before even attempting a shot, wasting time, and then not scoring anyway. The last thing Arsenal needed was more width. But these people refuse to accept this obvious truth.
So the transfer window ended, and, instead of needing 2 players, Arsenal now needed 3. They are worse off than before. And these #WeCareDoYou idiots were saying it's the team's best transfer window ever. They wanted a statue of Sanllehi.
Raul Sanllehi is a deadbeat dad: He bought all kinds of components for a great home entertainment system for his man cave, while the kids need food and new clothes.
And Unai Emery is a buffoon, who does not know how to manage players.
But the idiots still didn't blame Emery or Sanllehi. They blamed Wenger, and whichever of his players were left. They still blamed Wenger for "the mess" that "he put us in." And a player signed by Raul and managed by Unai couldn't possibly be at fault for any dropped points.
God help the last remaining Wenger player, whoever he turns out to be. He could score 3 goals in a game the team loses 4-3, but they will still blame him for "not tracking back" and helping with the defense.
Emery had already alienated Aaron Ramsey, Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal, Danny Welbeck, Alex Iwobi and Carl Jenkinson to the point where they wanted to be transferred to other teams, and have been. He had already alienated Mesut Özil, normally a very patient man and the best player Emery has ever managed, to the point where, when subbed off during the disastrous Europa League Final, he yelled at Emery, "I swear, you are not a coach!"
And he appeared to alienating his 2 world-class strikers, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whose goals turned draws into wins and losses into draws, and basically saved Emery's job for a while; and Alexandre Lacazette. And alienating his 2 good central defensive midfielders, the veteran Granit Xhaka and the young Matteo Guendouzi.
Arsenal are currently in 9th place in the Premier League. They are actually in what the WOB said Wenger put them in: Midtable mediocrity. They are 22 points behind League leaders Liverpool. They are 8 points out of the Top 4. They are 2 points behind arch-rival Tottenham, although with a game in hand as I type this. (Tottenham played, and won, today; Arsenal play tomorrow.)
Being a Premier League team, Arsenal have a bye into the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, the 1st weekend in January; and are likely to advance to the Knockout Stage of the Europa League. But they are already out of the League Cup, and, as I said, 9th in the Premier League.
Finally, after a home loss to Eintracht Frankfurt of Germany in the Europa League, the 7th straight game that Arsenal failed to win, Josh Kroenke, acting on behalf of his father Stan -- also the owner of the NFL's Los Angeles Rams, the NBA's Denver Nuggets, the NHL's Colorado Avalanche and MLS' Colorado Rapids -- fired Emery. As the man himself would say, "Good ebening."
It was Thanksgiving night, something for which American Arsenal fans could be thankful.
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The new manager, at least on an interim basis, is Freddie Ljungberg, who had previously managed the Arsenal Under-15 and Under-23 teams. A 42-year-old native of southern Sweden, he joined Arsenal as a winger from Swedish team Halmstad in 1998, and helped them win the 2002 and 2004 League titles, and the 2002, '03 and '05 FA Cups.
On a personal basis, he was the 1st former Arsenal player I ever saw live, in 2010, playing for MLS' Seattle Sounders against the New York Red Bulls at Red Bull Arena. (Thierry Henry would come to the Red Bulls a few weeks later.)
Known as Freddie the Red for his dyed Mohawk, he is now mostly bald, and, frankly, he looks better. He says he will manage the team the way he knows how. The Arsenal way. The Wenger way.
This will infuriate the WOB, who now know that it's not so easy, that not just anyone can manage Arsenal.
It is believed that Arsenal will look to hire a permanent manager, one with a winning pedigree -- if not soon, then after the season ends in May 2020.
This may not be necessary. What if Freddie turns out to be a good manager? Let's face it, he has no pressure on him. Win, and you're a bigger legend than ever. Fail, and fans will blame Emery -- or, if they're among the idiots, Wenger.
He has nothing to lose. He has much he can win. Gooners of the world, unite!
We may just get our Arsenal back!
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