Arsenal: Unai Emery finished, whether he realises it or not

Unai Emery’s tenure at Arsenal has been characterized by disjointed, uninspiring football. He is finished at the club, whether he — and the club — realises it or not.

Unai Emery is finished at Arsenal. His team plays rudderless, painfully undisciplined football. There is no leadership on the pitch or the sidelines. The plan of action is either a bad one, a poorly communicated one, a terribly executed one, or nonexistent entirely, none of which reflect well on the coach. Whether he realizes it, Emery’s tenure as the head coach is as dead as a bucket of fried chicken.

Find the latest episode of the Pain in the Arsenal Podcast here — Unai Emery out, again

It is painfully obvious that large portions of this team are either confused by or don’t believe in Emery’s tactics. The same can be said for a growing contingent of Arsenal fans. At this point, the best thing for all parties involved would be for Raul Sanllehi and Edu to make the difficult decision and move on.

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This would not be a knee-jerk reaction. The cold, hard fact of the matter is that Arsenal have been trending the wrong way for months. Who can even remember the last time when the team played two solid, high-quality football games in succession? Going back to last April, they have been playing the kind of football that can, and should, get any manager sacked. More to the point, there is nothing Emery is doing that’s working right now.

Emery’s preferred centre-back pairing of David Luiz and Sokratis have spent much of the season defending like they have side bets on who can concede the most shambolic goal possible. The troubling aspect is that no injury or other exigency forced Emery’s hand into starting them together. Calum Chambers is fit and played well in Arsenal’s first shutout of the season, while Rob Holding is now back in the fold as a fully-fit option too. And yet, Emery persists with two blind mice at centre-half. It has backfired spectacularly and led to a defence which surrenders leads with alarming frequency.

Additionally, when is the last time any respectable pundit or member of football’s intelligentsia hailed a brilliant tactical set-up or astute substitution? Who can forget the debacle vs. Watford where, with his team, being suffocated by Watford’s press, Emery took Dani Ceballos, Arsenal’s best ball carrier off the pitch because ‘it was hot’. Adding insult to injury, Emery’s midfield set up with Lucas Torreira in a creative role and Granit Xhaka shielding the backline has blown up in his face and could lead to both players leaving the club.

And arching over all of these little details is perhaps Emery’s most egregious sin: an utter lack of identity. Aside from a suicidal commitment to playing the ball out of the back with personnel dreadfully suited for that style of football, there is no tactical continuity whatsoever. Emery changes his line-up and tactics from week to week in a manner which obviously unsettles his team and he adapts to the opposition, even those far lesser in personnel quality than his own team, to an extent and regularity that unhinges any sense of philosophy or approach he might be attempting to instil, if he is indeed even attempting to do as such in the first place.

Emery is now guilty of every charge Wenger was facing when he was sacked. His tactics and substitutions are questionable at best, his team is playing disjointed, self-destructive football and conceding doughy soft goals for months, while they also respond poorly to physical, high-energy pressing from opposing midfields. Things are not trending in the right direction.

Arsenal don’t need a master tinkerer or a footballing savant. They need a manager who will define roles, communicate clearly players such that the team plays with cohesion and connection, and most importantly, hold his players accountable when they fail to do their jobs. Emery has proven himself utterly incapable of doing any of that.

With every passing day, Emery looks like a manager who is out of answers and out of his depth. That’s why now, before the season slips away entirely, is the time for Sanllehi to make the move. Whether he realises it or not, Emery is finished at Arsenal.