Arsenal, Unai Emery and David O’Leary: The actual story

The Sunday Express has completely misrepresented David O’Leary’s comments about Arsenal manager Unai Emery. Here’s the actual story.

I get it. I’ve done it myself. In the media, there is a desperation for clicks. It is how we all get paid. We wouldn’t if no one read the content that we produce. But there is an element of accuracy and integrity that is required when you work in the public light, a perspective that is so often lost in the increasingly ambiguous and murky waters of the modern media.

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And there is now another prime example of this twisting, contorting of words to construct a false narrative to garner clicks. It comes after the Arsenal legends played against Real Madrid in a charity match at the weekend.

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After the match, many of those that were present were interviewed, often asked about the current team and, in particular, what they thought of Unai Emery.

One interview was with David O’Leary, the legendary Gunners centre-half. He was asked what he thought of Emery, of what the season holds for him and his team, and to comment on the job at hand for the Spaniard. Here was his perfectly reasonable answer, courtesy of Goal:

"“I look at the five teams that finished ahead of us, I don’t think they’ve got any worse. I think it was going to be a tough job for whoever was going to come in here. If this manager gets into the top four, I think it’s been a great achievement.”"

The Sunday Express, however, in their slimy, click-striving style, decided to dress these quotes up a little. The title of their piece summarising what O’Leary said read: ‘Arsenal news: David O’Leary reveals Unai Emery doubts just four games into new season’. Clearly, that is not what O’Leary said.

The first thing to say is that O’Leary’s doubts have nothing to do with Emery and everything to do with the difficulty of his job, the current state of the team and how much ground there is to make up, and the increased competition at the top of the Premier League, all of which are fair doubts to have.

But the Express not only attempt to link O’Leary’s doubts explicitly to Emery, but they add the cruel, definition-twisting phrase, ‘just four games into the new season’. They are clearly trying to represent O’Leary’s comments as rash, questioning the work of Emery at this early stage in the season and in his tenure, even though that is completely not what he said at all.

O’Leary simply said that Emery has a difficult task at hand. Which he does. And that Arsenal have a lot of competition to get into the top four. Which they do. And that it would be a remarkable job if Emery is able to get Arsenal into the top four. Which it would be. That has nothing to do with doubting the manager, whatever the Express may want you to believe.

It’s just another example of the media twisting words and comments to suit their click-orientated narrative. It’s very frustrating indeed.

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