Arsenal: Assessing Unai Emery one year after Arsene Wenger

It has been one year since Arsene Wenger resigned as Arsenal manager. How has his successor, Unai Emery, performed in that time?

It has been one year since Arsene Wenger has bid his final goodbyes. A sad moment for Arsenal and their fans, Wenger was the foundation of the recent era of the club. He was the manager for 22 years, the sculptor of every nook and cranny of the organisation. But was his forced resignation actually beneficial?

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Well, a quick glance at the state of the club when he departed would provide a fairly emphatic answer: Arsenal were in a decline going from title contenders to a top-four side then to a struggling top-six side, they were readying for a second campaign in the Europa League, and had lost further ground to Manchester City, Liverpool and, most crucially, Spurs.

However, now, a year later, now under the control of former Paris Saint-Germain head coach Unai Emery, has anything really changed?

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Here are the key statistics from the 2017/18 season:

• Finish: 6th
• Points: 63
• Goals Scored: 74
• Goals Conceded: 51

And here are the key stats from the 2018/19 season:

• Finish: 5th
• Points: 70
• Goals Scored: 73
• Goals Conceded: 51

The 2017/18 season was by far the worst under Arsene Wenger. But it is fair to question just how much better the 2018/19 season was? They did accrue more points, but many of the matches were a little fortunately won, especially during the 22-game unbeaten run during the first half of the season, and the final collapse was extremely disappointing.

After 30 games, Arsenal were in fourth place with 60 points just a point below third-place Spurs. It was almost certain that they would secure a top-four finish with no more top-six matches to play. They then capitulated in those final eight matches and slipped behind Chelsea, losing out on a top-four finish. Moreover, the goal difference, which is often a better indicator of a team’s true quality over an extended sample size, as a league season is, is extremely comparable.

The picture is equally as murky if we look at the performance outside the Premier League:

Key finishes from the 2017/18 season:

• Knocked out by Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA cup
• Finalists of the EFL cup
• Semi-Finalists of the Europa league

Key finishes from the 2018/19 season:

• Knocked out by Manchester Utd in the fourth round of the FA cup
• Knocked out Spurs in the quarter-finals of the EFL cup
• Europa League finalists

Obviously, the Europa League final is still to play, and that will have a major bearing on the relative successes of the two seasons, but at present, there are extremely similar, which paints an interesting picture in regards to the decision to move on from Wenger.

It would not be fair to label this season as a failure. Emery was handed an impossible task. But it would also be correct to argue that Emery has not yet convinced everyone that he is the man for the job. The jury, for now, is still very much out.