Arsenal: Unai Emery was the right decision, even if he gets canned

Arsenal fans may think that we’ve wasted 18 months under Unai Emery, but that isn’t the case. Hiring him was the right choice, no matter the outcome.

Arsenal have now gone five Premier League matches without a win, and it’s not even like these matches have been that difficult. But for this club, everything looks difficult, and that’s why Unai Emery is living on the chopping block right now.

Many fans believe that appointing him at all was a mistake. They say that if we hire Mikel Arteta, all we accomplished is wasting 18 months under Unai Emery when we might have righted the ship from the get-go with Arteta.

I beg to differ. And it’s my good old fashioned American optimism that is making this argument, so be sure that you’re reading this is an American accent.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Taking over for Arsene Wenger was always going to produce a let-down. All these players that saw Wenger as the father of their footballing careers were in for a jolting change of pace and that can weigh heavily on any professional of any calling.

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For 12 months, fans were somewhat willing to throw Emery some slack. But add another six months to that, and his struggles to righten the Wenger legacy are fireable offenses. Now I won’t argue whether or not he should be fired. If he is, I’ll root for the next guy. If he isn’t, I’ll root for him. All I’m saying is there is no wasted time when it comes to recovering after a legendary 22 year reign. There just isn’t.

Emery had a sparkling track record of winning things, he showed tremendous promise, there was no real reason to think that he couldn’t do an admirable job. And if he is fired, I will always be here to say that if we gave him more time, he probably would have made good on his abilities in time.

But the point of the argument is that someone had to take that inevitable fall post-Wenger. Just like David Moyes took the fall post-Fergie (and many more after him). If you think Mikel Arteta would have immediately righted everything and spun us up in to the Premier League contenders, then you’re just trying to exacerbate a bad situation. You can’t know that for certain.

You can, however, make educated decisions based on historical context. Pep took time. Klopp took time. Emery would take time too. But if you want to fire him and find someone else, great. I won’t argue that decision.