Arsenal: Pressure on Unai Emery causing adverse effects too

There is rightfully a lot of pressure on Unai Emery and his future at Arsenal, but that pressure is breeding some adverse effects too.

There are a lot of Arsenal fans who would have fired Unai Emery months ago, but in true Gunner fashion, there has been patience, faith, and a belief that there is no immediate fix to Arsene Wenger’s departure. Because of course there isn’t.

As such, I still remain on the fence about immediate termination, but we are starting to see some adverse effects to that pressure as well, which is exactly the kind of thing we don’t want on a club that is build for the long-term.

Unai Emery spoke the other day about how he is thinking about “today and tomorrow” and little more. He doesn’t have the luxury to think down the road, he has to win right now or risk losing his job. Which is why he hasn’t been able to ingratiate youth into his set-up as much as he would like.

Hence the problem. We are seeing a ton of senior players and superstars holding down the fort at the club (if you can really call it that) because that if the best way for Emery to prolong his stay. Play your best players, right?

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But this takes away from guys like Bukayo Saka, Joe Willock, Gabriel Martinelli and more, because they aren’t going to be getting the starts that they might otherwise have gotten when Emery had a bit more security.

There’s not much you can do about that with the fanbase as toxic as they currently are. (And always are, let’s be honest.) You have to put pressure on him, not just for the fans, but because the team is absolutely struggling on the pitch. But then you put the pressure on him and he gets tunnel vision, which can’t be avoided, and can no longer think long-term, because there’s no guarantee he will be here through the week, let alone the season.

That’s not the way this club needs to operate, nor how they have ever operated in recent memory. Wenger in particular was all about the long term prospectus and Emery was carrying that on with his excellent handling of youth, but now that one clear perk of having him as manager has been thrown out the window.

It’s a double-edged sword. You can’t really do anything one way or the other to make this work. I just hope that a resolution can come quickly.