Can we just forget about Emery and move on now?

Two months after Emery has been sacked, what he has been getting are bashings and bad testimonies from both his former players at Arsenal and from sport pundits. Unai Emery came to Arsenal with a good coaching record. In his first season at Arsenal, he went 22 games unbeaten, while beating Tottenham in the process and drawing against Liverpool, who later went on to be Champions league winners. He really tried his best to make Arsenal competitive and they were. We played in the final of the Europa League and only lost to Chelsea because we gave them so much respect. He also began his second season at Arsenal with a win against Newcastle. In all, while many may want to view Emery’s time at Arsenal as a failure, I choose to view it differently. Emery was just unfortunate to be saddled with problems he had no solutions for.

Now, Emery is gone and we have Arteta. Arteta may have improved our game but as long as we keep drawing games and are not winning, I won’t join those who are praising him as the best thing to happen to Arsenal. Arteta is really trying his best to put Arsenal back to shape but while he is at it, can people just stop comparing him with Emery and focus on Arteta instead?

First it was Mustafi who claimed the former Arsenal coach was bad at communications. He even went as far as accusing the former coach of not being able to improve the team because of his lack of good communication skills.

As if that was not enough, I saw an article on justarsenal.com about Leno claiming the team was left confused by Emery’s approach, both on and off the pitch. The German goalkeeper, who was signed by Emery, had this to say about Emery’s time at the Emirates “The mentality out on the pitch, I don’t want to say it was a mess, but it was a bit confusing…Everyone was doing different things..We were not a team…Not in the dressing room, not on the pitch and you could see that.” Leno may just be expressing what he experienced under Emery but why would he come out now to say this? Why is everybody suddenly coming out to say things they could have said when Emery was still coach of Arsenal?

Adding his voice to those criticizing Emery’s time at Arsenal, is an ex player of the club, Emmanuel Petit. Petit believes Arsenal was not doing fine under Emery and that Arteta came to clear Emery’s mess. He described Arsenal under Emery as being sick on the pitch and in the dressing room.

These are not the best times for Emery but maybe all these bashings started the moment Emery came out to explain why things didn’t go well for him at Arsenal. Whatever may have happened, Emery is no longer at Arsenal and I wish people would just let him be. We are Arsenal and we are proud.

Sylvester Kwentua