Arsenal: Raul Sanllehi doing everything right, like it or not

Arsenal fans were thrilled when Raul Sanllehi took over as the Director of Football and even with Unai Emery, he’s doing everything absolutely right.

Arsenal had been bogged down by the lackluster, often questionable leadership of Ivan Gazidis during the latter years of Arsene Wenger’s reign. There was no Sporting Director or Director of Football because Wenger did everything.

So when Raul Sanllehi took over from Barcelona, it was cause for celebration. Here was someone who knew how to get things done, someone who understood the game and what it took to win. Ruthlessness was part of his M.O.

Sanllehi has now fallen under criticism because he hasn’t moved to sack Unai Emery yet. Some even say that it’s because Emery is “Sanllehi’s man” and the former Barcelona director still believes in Emery.

This can’t be easy for Sanllehi. You’ve got disgruntled fans on one end, and a manager you truly believe in on the other. This means toeing the line between both parties, because you’re never going to please everyone.

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Sanllehi has done that. He hasn’t been deaf to fan complaints. Even as he hasn’t fired Emery yet, he did make a special visit to Emery in the locker room after the Southampton draw and as you may have heard, he looked mighty peeved after the final whistle blew.

They understand that the club needs to fix things. But they also understand something else—this isn’t a crisis. It’s a problem that needs to be monitored, it’s a situation that could get worse. And it’s something that you don’t necessarily want to let evolve into a crisis, but knowing what a crisis looks like is the difference between ripping out a plant because you think it might be a weed and waiting to make sure that it’s a weed just in case.

Emery hasn’t had a lot of time to get settled, and he has been doing a lot of this with players he wouldn’t necessarily have signed himself. Granted, all managers have to go through that kind of thing at some point in their career, but I’m just saying. Emery is a quality manager, we know that. Something just isn’t working at the current club and rather than make an impulse decision and scorch the lot, Sanllehi is taking a calm, analytical approach to this.

Like it or not, that is a very Arsenal thing to do, for better or worse. He is going to give his man every chance to succeed before he drops the guillotine.