Arsenal: Unai Emery job a truly ‘brilliant’ one

Arsenal are on the verge of a top-four finish and a Europa League semi-final. It is easy to forget, but Unai Emery is doing a ‘brilliant’ job.

Arsenal decided to move on from Arsene Wenger. He may have officially handed his resignation in, but make no mistake, his departure was a move engineered by the club. Wenger, if he had his way, would still be at the Emirates.

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But the Gunners felt that they would be better served by moving onto another manager. And the man they eventually settled on was former Paris Saint-Germain and Sevilla manager, Unai Emery. Now, almost at the end of his first season at the club, it is fair to take stock and assess the job that he does — and by extension, the decision to move on from Wenger.

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According to Gary Neville, who was speaking in his role as a pundit for Sky Sports during their Monday Night Football coverage, it is clear the quality of the job that Emery has done this season:

"“For them to be where they are in front of Chelsea with a game in hand, navigating the Europa League which we have always talked about on this programme for four or five years about how hard it is to play Thursdays and Sundays, out of sync with what is a normal week and how teams struggle with that, I think it’s a brilliant performance <..> When you look at that Arsenal team there are a lot of questions still to be answered. You think of Ozil, you think of Ramsey leaving, the defenders, the midfield doesn’t look quite right, you’re not convinced about the goalkeeper at all, the full-backs look like they could change every week. And yet, he is getting that level of performance out of them. I think it’s a brilliant performance.”"

And I would completely agree.

For Arsenal to even be competing with the likes of Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester United, clubs that have either spent far more or are far further along in their project, is extremely impressive. The fact that they are bettering them in some cases is truly staggering.

Throw in the European success, where the club is expected to make it to the semi-finals of the Europa League on Thursday night and will subsequently be considered the favourites to win the competition, and to call the job that Emery has done during his first season at the club anything less than ‘brilliant’ would be disrespectful.

And not only has he brought such success to the team, but he has done so without spending vast amounts of money, while dealing with the Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey situations, losing three key players for the season through injury, and in arguably the most competitive Premier League era.

What Emery has done this past year is utterly phenomenal. I just hope that he is given the praise and recognition he deserves.