An AFCBell article that covers Emery’s time at the club
http://theafcbell.blogspot.com/2019/11/Unai-Emery.html?m=1Seen this doing the rounds on Twitter and I don’t think it’s been posted here before so it could have some info some people don’t know about. Here’s the key points from the article (I’m on mobile so sorry if it looks bad, will format better once I’m on a computer):
For Wenger’s successor: Gazidis wanted Arteta, Mislintat wanted Ragnick, Raul wanted Emery
Arteta was allowed to leave City with a conditional agreement that he would manage the club one day.
Raul wanted Emery because he would accept a role with limited power, and wanted to bring him in “at all costs”. Emery wasn’t on initial shortlist and had offers from Real Sociedad and West Ham.
Gazidis felt Arteta not being appointed was showed a lack of trust from the Kroenke’s and was a major factor in him leaving, he had 2 offers from the MLS prior to Milan.
After Gazidis left, Raul became the most powerful person at the club, his power was compared to Wenger’s once Sven left.
Raul was aware of fans disappointment with Emery, he made the clubs Twitter highlight positive changes Unai made to convince fans.
Initial plan was Sven identifies targets and Raul uses his network to get the players but there were cracks in the relationship, Sven resigned and Raul didn’t stand in his way.
Confirmed that some players mocked Emery’s English.
Emery’s video sessions were initially 1hr, players welcomed them but they became monotonous, players requested they were shortened and they were cut to 30/40mins.
After City/Chelsea Emery told Özil and Ramsey that they were below the required level, he expected more defensively and he wouldn’t hesitate to bench them, and it didn’t go down well with the players camps.
Ramsey’s playing style contradicted Emery’s vision, but once Emery realised how important Ramsey was Raul had decided not to offer him a contract due to his injury record, saying it would be devistating to the clubs future. Ramsey wanted a wage similar to Mkhitaryan (£200k).
Ramsey played through an injury to try to get the club back to the CL until his body couldn’t take it.
Treatment of Özil was ‘dry and cold’, wanted to make his life hell to get rid of wages, someone in Özil’s team say there were hints that Emery played Özil vs Liverpool with the kids to make him look bad but he played well. Players were split over Özil treatment, some backed Mesut, others were quiet and didn’t want to lose their place in the team.
AMN told Emery several times he wasn’t comfortable playing RB, Emery didn’t listen, AMN had to get psychological help due to the stress he was under.
Torreira not played at DM because he wasn’t tall/skilful enough like Nzonzi/Banega who Emery wanted. LT’s girlfriend failed to settle in England, he wasn’t comfortable playing in advanced role under Emery.
Josh Kroenke wanted to renew Emery’s contract but ‘old guard’ said no due to bottling top 4 and Europa and underlying metrics of unbeaten run being lucky (translation here could be off, it may be Raul/Vinai that wanted to renew Emery, especially with other stories regarding Raul wanting to renew his contract).
Freddie Ljungberg was promoted to first team staff as Emery didn’t keep his promise of promoting youth players.
https://redd.it/l8iwsu@r_gunners
