Arsenal were looking to give a me new contract, admits Unai Emery
Former Arsenal manager Unai Emery has revealed that the North London giants were close to offering him a new contract before he was sacked by the club. The Spaniard struggled towards the end of his tenure with Arsenal and was sacked in late November with the club without a win in seven games.
The Gunners have struggled to find their footing this season and sit in the bottom half of the table going into the new year. Not only that, the club are six points off the relegation zone with the likes of Newcastle United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton and Crystal Palace all sitting well above them. Things started in Unai Emery’s final months at the club with the Spaniard failing to win a single game in his last seven matches with the club.
The club eventually parted ways with the former Sevilla boss and in an interview, Emery went on to reveal that the North London giants were close to offering him a new deal. The Spaniard also added that losing to Sheffield United was the turning point as it saw all his work undone in the space of a month with the club incapable of any of his last seven games.
"This season, theoretically, we began well and I had the feeling – and so did the club – that the achievements of the previous season were valued. We were now looking to how we could develop together even to the point where they were looking to offer a renewed contract. Then I remember we had one month that the frustrations from bad results were beginning to make us worse for the following matches," he told BBC Sport.
"We were losing confidence and a bit of stability. The game against Sheffield United was a bit of a turning point. In one month, everything got broken. We were incapable of winning a game in seven and the tension based on the question we were asking 'what's happening to us?' was like a rolling ball that was just getting bigger and bigger.
One of the Spaniard’s biggest problems this season was the fact that he kept changing his team weekend after weekend which ensured that the club had no stability. Plus over and above that, the fact that Mesut Ozil struggled to get a look in while Emery was at the helm and issues with the club’s two strikers meant that the former PSG boss came under even more stick.
"The truth is that the coach is the first person to come into the spotlight. I've had it at other clubs and managed to conquer it by getting the team back on track, but at Arsenal that month was terrible. We had to win to regain our emotional equilibrium, to get rid of that frustration, and we couldn't. I spoke to the players three or four weeks before the process began to tell them that things were not going well and that I couldn't see the team I pictured on the field of play.
"We looked for solutions. At times defensively we had to be stronger, so we went with three central defenders. We were trying to find a way to tactically synergise [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang, Ozil and Lacazette so that everyone could play the best possible in their position and the results still didn't come,” he added.Â