Unai Emery’s time at Arsenal was a disaster.
The Spaniard was tasked with replacing Arsene Wenger, who is the Gunners’ greatest ever manager. It was never going to be easy, but Emery made it harder for himself.
Even though Arsenal reached the Europa League final in his debut campaign, the Gunners looked really poor for large parts. The second season was an even bigger mess, and Emery was rightly shown the door.
Now, the former Arsenal manager’s assistant at the time, Juan Carlos Carcedo, has shed some light on what he thought was the problem.
When did you realise that Unai Emery wouldn’t cut it at Arsenal?
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Unai Emery’s former assistant explains why they failed at Arsenal
When Unai Emery joined Arsenal, he brought five people with him.
Carcedo came in as his first assistant, Pablo Villanueva as a first-team coach, and Javi Garcia as the goalkeeping coach.
Julen Masach and Victor Manas also arrived as the strength and conditioning coach and video analyst respectively.
All of the above people are Spanish and were appointed by Emery to help him deliver success at Arsenal. But it didn’t go to plan.
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Now, Carcedo has strangely revealed that the former Arsenal boss would’ve been a hit at the Emirates if the Gunners had even more Spaniards as part of the staff.
He wrote in the Coaches’ Voice: “When we arrived at Arsenal in 2018, it was a difficult time after Arsène Wenger’s departure. The fans were used to that managerial figure.
“Perhaps with a little more time – and more Spaniards on the coaching staff to support Unai, as is now the case at Aston Villa – we would have had greater stability.
“Something that would have led to winning a trophy, because the conditions were there and the club is big. In fact, we played in the Europa League final in 2019.”
What do you think was Unai Emery’s biggest mistake at Arsenal before he was sacked?
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Unai Emery’s philosophy is the reason why he failed at Arsenal
Arsenal’s owners and board allowed Emery to bring in five people of his choice to the club, which is more than enough for a manager to do his job.
The fact that Carcedo is using the lack of Spaniards in the coaching staff to justify the problems is just ridiculous. It was Emery’s philosophy that let him down.
Going from Wenger’s free-flowing attacking football to the Spaniard being overly defensive even against the weaker teams was never going to work. Emery once even used Lucas Torreira as number 10, which made no sense.
That, combined with terrible results, cost him his job at the club, and he can blame nobody but himself.
Emery is doing a good job at Aston Villa now and deserves all the praise in the world for that. But Arsenal were right to sack him because he was just not good enough for them.
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