What’s really the point in relitigating Wenger’s final seasons or Emery’s unsuccessful time at Arsenal? Unai has done very well at Villa since he took over, mid-season I’ll add. Why not just give him credit for that? Without having to declare how elite he is overall?
I've forgotten a lot of the detail, and i really was not an emery fan, but i do recall there was a deep dive into all of it and one important factor was the decline in the attacking output from Ozil+Alexis+Giroud. Ozil's outputs go off the data cliff in the 18-19 season Alexis left Jan 2018 Giroud - an almost elite 9, leaves jan 2018 Auba was actually an elite 9, but he didn't really paper over all the other issues. The midfield was also poor by this time. So while I agree Wenger was likely a better league manager than Emery, I think the clear trend was downwards since around 2016, and once Alexis left and Ozil lost his mojo, the squad just actually sucked. tldr; the league position reflected the squad, and by 16/17 we already were in steady decline
This is overstated. Giroud + Alexis was pretty well replaced by Auba + Miki, and Giroud barely played that season. Miki was a much better player than anyone remembers. Also surprising: Alex Lacazette averaged .56 xG/90 that season, which seems much higher than you'd expect. I think the data suggests otherwise: 16/17 was Arsenal's worst season under Wenger (and it isn't all that close), and Wenger had fixed a lot of the problems in 17/18.
Laca was decent when he first got here, but his pace fell off a cliff and when Auba arrived he never had a clear position again. One thing that shouldn’t get lost in all this analysis: the league was undeniably much thinner in the 16/17 era than it is now. This isn’t meant as an observation to close-compare Wenger 17/18 to Emery 18/19, mind you. I think I agree with most of what @mebeSajid has said about that comparison but for obvious reasons I have blocked out that footballing era from my memory and have little desire to revisit it. But point being: banter-era Wenger could still get away with little attention to detail because half the league didn’t know how to press or get out of a press or even possess the ball. As long as he had a guy or two at the back who would yell at people to get into defensive shape, the rest could sort itself out. The league was in a major transitory phase once Pep and Klopp arrived, and it showed most obviously when Arsenal could go out and batter most teams and then lose 6-0 to a City or Pool or Chelsea
Okay. I actually like him. He's the only ex-Arsenal guy who doesn't go out of his way to bash us to show "lack of bias" or something---in contrast to, say, Dixon, who I can't stand. He was even awful when he was on the Handbrake Off pod. So negative and no insight.
Yeah I’ve soured on Dixon in recent years… he seems to add less and less insight. I used to like Robson until he got too pompous. I like Smith generally. Upson’s not bad too. Clarke would be a decent coms guy but I’m not sure he does it much. I miss Keown. And even the wacky enthusiasm of Winterburn
Color commentators are generally underwhelming. I like Alan Smith, but the rest of them range from meh to ugh to throwing bricks at the TV.
This is definitely true about standards being lifted with the arrival of Pep and Klopp. Wenger could have won the league by accident in 15/16
What I mostly take away from that era is the pundit class narratives about lack of bottle and spirit were mostly bullshit. Things improved sharply when Stan showered 250m on the team and arsenal have a decent recruitment function for once. Remember how Freddie was supposedly going to turn things around by playing the kids because he was a great communicator? All that talk was so naive.
Here in the States there's always the "wanting it more" narrative, which is such lazy and almost meaningless commentary. Teams will duke it out back and forth for an entire game, then one will win because a kicker makes a field goal and that team won because they "wanted it more" according to half the broadcasters. barf
intriguing as Copenhagen and Galatasary both with everything to play for in the other match, and Yanited playing Bayern. slim chances indeed.
@mebeSajid mikhi had about 2 good games for Arsenal, same as Guendouzi Late wenger was not good at all and the squad was down to him. Horrible signings and a weak ending to a legendary managers career
I assume that when you included Guendouzi in the first sentence you didn’t mean to imply by association that he was one of late Wenger’s horrible signings because he wasn’t, he was all Emery and/or Sven.
We were just treated to this in the last 2 years of All Black rugby where pundits were penning the failure of the entire culture of the game, then the ABs delivered one of the bravest performances you'll ever see in the final only to lose, so all that was just memory holed as if it never happened
Mkhi was a very good player but getting the best out of him was not easy In any event Arsenal's problems were always at 6&8 IMO Germany showed that aging Ozil should have been moved back in to a deeper midfield role - only trouble is Arsenal did not have a CM like Toni kroos