Unai Emery needs to find his way or find the highway

Unai Emery needs to find his way or find the highway

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With a smorgasbord of managers available to them, Arsenal picked Unai Emery in the hopes that the serial Europa League winner could help them move on from a club dominated by one man. But more often than not life is never fair and it's now Emery's time to either step up or step out of the rat race.

The running joke in the build up to Arsene Wenger’s final season at Arsenal was crisis, as usual, the Arsenal way. It’s the way things had been to a certain extent with success (in generic terms) a long way off from the norm and the club struggling to compete with the big boys of the Premier League in terms of anything tangible or liftable at the end of the season. However, the one thing the club got surprisingly right was giving their man after Wenger the chance to only manage the team and not run the entire club. Somehow, the club established a backroom with Per Mertesacker taking over as their head of youth development aka academy manager.

Old men like Andries Jonker and Ivan Gazidis walked out and were replaced by Raul Sanllehi and super-scout Sven Mislintat to help the identify and sign the right men at the right price. It gave fans hope for the future and with that in mind Unai Emery walked in, and that plays a big part, as the head coach.  It was supposed to be the solution to everything and yet fifteen months on Unai Emery stands exactly where Arsene Wenger once stood, at the place where time stood still. Fifteen months on and Emery has failed to live up to any reputation he had when he walked in at Emirates. Instead, while there have been sparks and flashes of good football, the road to hell has been paved with mediocrity and issues across the board.

That alone has caused a myriad of problems because for all the planning and hiring that Arsenal did, they’re now exactly who and where they never wanted to be. The who are Manchester United and the where being a year into David Moyes’, aka the Chosen One’s, career at Old Trafford. History books, media storms and journalists regularly talk about the Scottish manager’s career as a warning to future managers. It's the same warning Arsenal tried to heed, and the comparisons are there for everyone to see, read and watch. The biggest difference, baring the contract, is the fact that if anything Emery walked in with a resume and a past that was backed up with trophies and performances.

It had bad performances along the line but consistency, a clear tactical plan against every kind of team backed with research and futuristic training methods helped his cause. And a glancing look at Arsenal does show some signs of positivity if nothing else. Their home form has been good, comparatively, with 12 of their 17 points coming at home. Their defense has improved despite the fact they’ve conceded 15 goals already, a total that puts them in the middle of the pack, and it’s one of the reasons why the club sit in fifth place with just two losses.

Their 1.55 points per game, 1.45 goals scored per game, and 18% defeats (after 11 games) are all well above the league average. Their youth academy is shining with Joe Willock, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka all getting chances to show their worth. Gabriel Martinelli and Matteo Guendouzi are proving to be bargains, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been a godsend, and Arsenal has a fully fit(ish) team. But that’s just a glancing look in North London before one moves on. If you do stop and stay for the night then the cracks begin to show and for a club the size of Arsenal, it’s far too many.

Fifteen months in and Unai Emery still hasn’t figured out his perfect formation with him using 12 variants in his debut season and six already so far. That alone on a few occasions, by fans, has called for his head but the Spaniard’s frequent changes has caused a lack of cohesion in the squad which has called into question his selections. Not just that, more often than not Emery has struggled to find the right balance in his team. Given that it’s the core of any winning side, that lack of balance has brought about the domino effect which has seeped into everything else.

It’s brought about problems with and against Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil, Dani Ceballos, Lucas Torreira and more importantly the club’s dependence on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are all blindly evident. No player has played more minutes than the Gabonese striker and no Arsenal player has come even close to matching his goal tally. For all their summer spending, Arsenal are still defensively weak and now have a lack of attacking spark with individual brilliance shining albeit rather brightly. It’s why the club have won just 20% of their games and why they’re on their worst start, after 11 games, in over six years. Something is clearly not right in North London and the blame, in the end, lies at the feet of the 'head coach' Unai Emery.

He knows it, Twitter knows it and even the fly on the wall knows it. The question, however, is what will or rather can he do to save his skin. It's the one that Arsenal and their board really need to be asking right now ahead of what just might be Emery’s biggest battle. A rampant Leicester City that bears a striking resemblance to what Arsenal should have been aiming for and if nothing else, it’s a measure for both sides. For Emery, however, this just might prove to be his biggest test of the season because, in Leicester City, he faces opponents the Gunners have not just comfortably beaten in the past but done it with exuberant style.

And despite fans and critics calling for his head, a legend waiting to grab a hold of the reigns peeking around the corner and Jose Mourinho’s terrifying shadow looming over London, Arsenal’s board stands with Emery. Reports have indicated that he has been given time, despite the mere discussion of that being met with boos, Emery has been given time to change. Now all he must do is do something useful with that ticking clock or walk away and let someone else deal with all the mess he left behind.

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