Also, I'm being silly. Emery deserves a chance. Though his record against elite managers is really, really, really bad.
I was worried by reports that Emery would have trouble communicating in English. Based on the press conference, his English isn't great, but it's good enough. My first joice was Jardim, based the attacking football Monaco play and his mentorship of young players. I believe the fact that they sit second in league 1, after losing four starters in the last summer transfer window is testament to his ability. But it doesn't appear Arsenal were ever interested. I was also interested in Arteta for two reasons, I liked him as a player, going back to his time at Everton, and I think he could be successful with Pep's tactical scheme at Arsenal. However, having landed on Emery, I think it's an interesting joice. It is a little bit of a gamble. I don't think it's Gazidis taking the safe option. If he was looking for a safe option he could have accommodated some of Allegri's concerns. I'm willing to sit back and give Emery a chance.
Jardim was also my first choice. But in fairness to Emery, he had to deal with issues similar to those for which Jardim has earned (deservedly so) praise. That being, at both Valencia and Sevilla, he had to deal with some of his top players getting poached every off-season. And yet still did fairly well in spite of that.
By the way, the arseblog podcast is hilarious, because they recorded it in front of an audience (that's how you know you've made it: when people will attend the recordings of your podcasts), and Ornstein tweeted the Emery news while they were recording.
Agreed. A little gamble, but IMHO smaller than the gamble w/ Arteta. And I agree about Gazidis, as much as he's flexing his muscle more, I don't think he's calling the shots alone. The choice is made so let's stop all the second guessing and get behind Emery!!
p.s. I'm certainly no expert on all these personnel matters, but I heard month(s) ago that Jardim wasn't leaving Monaco period. His employers didn't want to let him go. At any given point in time, you go with the pool of available candidates. And for whatever the reasons were, our board chose Emery.
Emery is the best available Enrique wouldn’t come or allegri and arteta needs to coach somewhere first same as Henry and vieira (mls doesn’t count) Jardim was my number one but Monaco won’t let him go
Because he gets briefed from the front office Doesn't mean it will pan out but it tells you what story gazidis is putting out there at the time
Everything he says doesn’t come from the front office. On the 18th, he said that arteta was the front runner. That was the day Ivan presented Unai to the board as the IRS choice along with a 100 page dossier to justify it. So the front office is telling ornstein that arteta is the guy, while IRS are preparing to present Emery to the board and setting up a meeting with Kroenke in Atlanta? That doesn’t make sense. People put way too much faith in these itk types. If ornstein doesn’t say it in “affirmative” type language then I’d assume he’s only getting info from people who have suspicion or feeling and not knowledge.
Sigh... 1. Ornstein is not a ITK - he is a BBC Journalist 2. This is completely wrong and demonstrates a lack of understanding of how this stuff works - see for example Bayern Munich, Hoeness and Tuchel The fact that the FO briefed one way on Arteta but then things changed is the kind of thing that happens all the time. For instance, if Ornstein was being briefed by the media guys, he may not have looped in that Gazidis had gone the other way - indeed it seems clear that Gazidis changed course late in the process and may not have leaked that at all. This is how journos get hung out to dry time and time again. Bottom line is Arteta was late in the process and was inches away from the job. Why it changed at the last minute has since been briefed in a very pro Gazidis article to the guardian two guesses who planted that story
At these times I simply say go read Honigstein who has explained time and time again how journo's print what they get told by clubs, then get called fake news by fans when plans change, His peak example was how SAF himself leaked to the media that Rooney was boozing, then denied it in the very next presser What one can say is that Arse was obviously briefing heavily one way, then at the last moment when with Emery It could be smokescreen but my guess is Gazidis simply changed his mind.
Ornstein doesn't put stuff like this out without the club's permission. He's basically a mouthpiece for the club. What's your basis for saying that Emery was presented to the board on the 18th? If that's true, kind of a terrible thing to do to Arteta, who thought he'd had the job: should have told him privately beforehand.
If you've ever pitched for stuff at board level - you'd know you can lose these things literally in the final hours. I can accept that Emery did a better presentation, and then people got cold on Arteta
For reference - this is the front office briefed story to establish the narrative of Gazidis as king maker Piece on Ivan Gazidis – one-time schoolboy football ace and deeply analytical thinker. His relationship with Wenger, a Gomorrah-style coup and why Arteta was a gamble too far #afc https://t.co/FXQGgk5nL9— David Hytner (@DaveHytner) May 22, 2018
My best friend was high ranking crisis management communications type at a UK based firm here in NY that Arsenal shizzz is typically done to CYA
yeah - I think it indicated a troubling u-turn the thing is they briefed about a careful, exacting process - so far so good but then they heavily trailed Arteta but then didn't appoint him smacks of concerning process fail to me If Emery had done a great presso, then why were they trailing Arteta in advance? The whole point to trail Arteta was to prep the audience for his announcement, so the fact that he wasn't then appointed tends to hint that he must have been very close to the job but something went pear shaped in the final day or so there was no advance media on Emery
That was what Ivan said in the presser today. They had 8 candidates which they interviewed personally. All were interested until the club made their decision. Interviews went from 4/25 to 5/10. IRS parented Emery to the board on 5/18. Ivan and Emery flew to Atlanta to meet Kroenke on 21st. What did they do to arteta? I don’t think he ever was as close as been reported. Go read ornstein article on 5/18. He merely said that arteta was the front runner. Maybe that’s what he heard, but Ivan said that “those that know don’t tell, and those that tell don’t know.” Have you ever hired anyone? It’s a process. Things shift from one candidate to another as you do your diligence—talk to references, background, follow up interviews, etc. if it’s done by committee there is usually quite a bit of deliberation. I don’t buy this narrative that arteta was always the guy and the club was just rolling in others like PV and TH to seem like they were doing their diligence. Ivan hired Sven and Raul to help him when AW left. You honestly think that those three flip-flopped last minute and threw arteta out the window? ITKs just creating a narrative to make it seem like they actually presented a fact.
All this talk about the hiring "process" leads me to conclude that Arsenal management had no real plans or ideas when they pushed Wenger out. Wenger only had 1 year left on his contract anyway, and we were led to believe it was his last one when he signed it. So Wenger's pending departure wasn't a surprise to anyone. What is surprising is how seemingly unprepared management was/is to hire his replacement. I'm hoping Emery works out. But I'm also highly annoyed at the failure to do any real succession planning before his hiring.
I would forgive all before PSG quite easily. While his teams were nice, they were nowhere near Real Madrid, Barcelona, or A. Madrid all those years. Even at their best, its completely reasonable to me that they couldn't win those type of games.
I don't know why so many of you folks spend so many cycles thinking about what might've happened leading up to this decision. Maybe some day it will come out exactly how it happened, or maybe (more likely?) not. The main thing is that the process happened and Emery rose to the top. Instead of divining clues of mismanagement, why don't we just accept that the decision's been made and now spend our mental time & energy on Unai Emery as he goes forward as head coach? What are we only 1 week into the post-Wenger era? I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a lot of real clues as to how the new management is going to work in this new era. Instead of wanting to pounce on perceived shortcomings, why don't we just have a little patience, let it play out, and support the club while they develop this new way of working.