Arsenal: The immediate advantage Unai Emery has

Unai Emery is the new Head Coach of Arsenal football club. He has an immediate advantage over Arsene Wenger and many other Premier League managers: He’s new. Here’s why.

Arsenal had the same manager for 22 years. In the history of the game, only six men can lay claim to a longer managerial tenure at one football club. Continuity is often seen as a positive in this sport, with organisations striving for a stability and structure that drives the culture. But when continuity verges on stagnation, the insatiable search for consistency can a become detrimental one.

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That is what Arsenal discovered with Arsene Wenger. His messages weren’t quite as clear. His lessons weren’t really being learned. The players were in the very middle of their comfort zones, not even venturing to the edges of them, quite happy to go through the motions, safe in the knowledge that the way it had been would be the way it would always be.

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No more. Unai Emery is the new Head Coach. He brings new ideas, new philosophies, new opinions, an absence of loyalty and prior relationship that makes him dangerous to many of the previously protected players in the squad. He is new. He is different. He will impart change. And that is a very good thing indeed.

Just read these comments from Petr Cech when he spoke with the media from Wednesday’s training session in Singapore. They are very telling indeed:

"“Everyone works as hard as he can and then the manager makes the choice when pre-season is over. The only thing you can do as a player is work hard in training and then you try to show your manager you are the only one who can play <…> the manager has the decision who is going to be in the starting line-up and who isn’t. We have a large squad so there will always be people left behind. a new manager comes in, you work hard as you can to show him you can be in the starting line-up and that’s all you can do.”"

Cech was specifically asked about his situation with new signing Bernd Leno and their anticipated competition for the number one goalkeeping position, something that Emery privately told them they would have to compete for during the preseason. But he speaks in more general terms, highlighting the battle for positions throughout the squad, not just between him and Leno.

That is the immediate and significant advantage that Emery has over almost every other manager in the Premier League. and over Wenger in recent seasons also. Take Jurgen Klopp for example. Even though Liverpool have invested money in new players this summer and are looking to further develop their team, many of the players who started regularly last season are safe in the knowledge that they will start next season. Klopp isn’t going to drop Roberto Firmino or Mohamed Salah or Virgil van Dijk any time soon.

It would be easy for those players to slip into a state of complacency and comfort that prevents them from developing their games, and thus further improving the collective Liverpool team. Emery does not have that problem. He has no allegiance to any of the players already at Arsenal. He can threaten them with reduced playing time, as evidenced by Jack Wilshere’s decision to leave earlier in the summer. He is a new man, a new Head Coach, a new direction.

It obviously remains to be seen how all this plays out, but it does give reason to hope for the season ahead. The change that Emery inevitably brings, unwillingly or not, is a rare advantage for him and him alone. And that is very exciting indeed.