Arsenal and Unai Emery: Process, process, process

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 10: Unai Emery, Manager of Arsenal reacts during the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and Manchester United at Emirates Stadium on March 10, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 10: Unai Emery, Manager of Arsenal reacts during the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and Manchester United at Emirates Stadium on March 10, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Unai Emery is nearly a year into his tenure as Arsenal head coach. This year, like his whole tenure, is about mastering the process and little else.

No matter how much I wanted to say otherwise, it was not working with Arsene Wenger. From the mismanagement of personnel, contracts and transfer to naive, defensively-disastrous tactics, at every level, Arsenal was a club in decline. And that started from the very bottom, the very core, of the club.

Find the latest episode of the Pain in the Arsenal Podcast here — Season in review; Summer window looms

Whoever was to replace Wenger, then, had to equally start from the bottom, re-establish the cultures of the organisation, re-implementing basic philosophies and tactical approaches. While football is a results-based business, for Arsenal, this season was about relaying the processes from which those results sprout.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

That is why Unai Emery, as the man who was tasked with leading the club into the post-Wenger era, has continually used the word ‘process’ in his dealings with the media throughout the season. And this week, Emery, after a brief, Dubai-inspired hiatus thanks to a 17-day midseason break, was asked about whether he believes the players now better understand his system and can more accurately and instinctively execute what he is asking of them. Predictably, he retorted with the word ‘process’:

"“We are in our process but our process is giving us, all the time, better combinations with the players and better combinations tactically. We are playing different systems with different players and we are taking a big performance with them. I have a lot of confidence in us and our players.”"

And there is a reason Emery has been so insistent to focus on the process, rather than results. If you remember, throughout that 22-game unbeaten run to open the season, Emery was keen to express that his side still had plenty of areas where they needed to improve. And then, during the festive period and shortly after, the results worsened.

Emery understands that, over time, the results are driven by the quality of the process. And although he wants to win matches and trophies, obviously, at this present time, he is as — if not more — concerned with how his team plays, not just whether they get good results.

In this first season of the post-Wenger era, the relaying of foundations, of cultures and values and systems and shapes is the most important task. More than winning the odd game, Emery needs to instill his style into the squad, just as Jurgen Klopp did during those early years at Liverpool and Pep Guardiola did at Manchester City.

For Arsenal and Unai Emery, this season has been all about the process. And in the long run, that is no bad thing whatsoever.