Arsenal have moved to appoint Unai Emery as the successor to Arsène Wenger. The club have conducted a thorough recruitment process as they look to replace Wenger – their manager of almost 22 years – who departed at the end of the season and Mikel Arteta had been considered as the favourite for the past week or so.
However, the signs on Monday were that Emery, the former Paris St-Germain and Sevilla manager, was set to be chosen. The club have spoken to him and a decision is expected to be confirmed later in the week.
Emery is a safer bet in terms of his experience and, in the end, it is this factor that has swayed the decision of Ivan Gazidis, the Arsenal chief executive, who has led the recruitment drive. Arteta, the former Arsenal player, who is now a member of Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff at Manchester City, has not yet managed a club whereas Emery has been in the business since 2005, when he cut his teeth at Lorca Deportiva in his native Spain.
The 46-year-old has gone on to take charge at Almería, Valencia, Spartak Moscow, Sevilla and, most recently, PSG – clubs of mounting profile – and he has impressed Gazidis, even though he is not fluent in English.
Timeline Unai Emery: the story so far Show Hide The 46-year-old's managerial career began in Spain's second division and has taken him to Russia, France and major European honours Playing career cut short While Arsène Wenger is being unveiled at Arsenal, Emery settles in at Toledo in Spain's second tier after leaving his first club, Real Sociedad. Emery, a left-sided midfielder, also turned out for Racing Ferrol, Leganés and Lorca Deportiva before a knee injury ended his playing career at the age of 32. Fairytale at Lorca Emery is offered the manager's position at Lorca Deportiva after his knee injury, and goes on to lead the team into Spain's second division. In his first full season, Lorca miss promotion to La Liga by just five points. Breakthrough at Almería Emery comes to the attention of Spain's big clubs after guiding Almería to their first promotion to La Liga, and securing an eighth-place finish in the top flight. He is snapped up by Valencia in the summer of 2008. Reviving Valencia Emery replaces Ronald Koeman at cash-strapped Valencia and sets about returning the club to the Champions League. He leaves Valencia in 2012 after three consecutive third-place league finishes. Failed Moscow mission The first blot on Emery's managerial copy book comes in Russia, where he lasts just six months at Spartak Moscow, and is sacked after a 5-1 derby defeat to Dynamo. Europa League three-peat After returning to La Liga with Sevilla in January 2013, Emery leads them to three consecutive Europa League titles. Sevilla beat Liverpool 3-1 in Basle to complete the hat-trick in the manager's penultimate game in charge. Champions League pain in Spain PSG finish second to Arsenal in their Champions League group, and then thrash Barcelona 4-0 in the first leg of their last-16 tie. On the verge of a European breakthrough, they lose the second leg 6-1 and crash out. PSG also lose out to Monaco in the French title race. Signing off with a treble Emery wins Ligue 1 and both Cup competitions in France to take his trophy haul at the club to five, but another last-16 Champions League exit leads to his departure at the end of the season.
Emery is happy to work within the management structure that Gazidis has put in place at the Emirates Stadium – in which there are prominent recruitment roles for Raúl Sanllehí and Sven Mislintat. He enjoyed eye-catching success at Sevilla, where he won three consecutive Europa Leagues, and he won the championship at PSG in this past season, although his relative failure in the Champions League, in the shape of a last-16 exit against Real Madrid, cost him his job. He has been replaced by Thomas Tuchel – the one-time Arsenal target.
Arteta had a meeting with the Arsenal hierarchy last week and he was confident that he would get the job. Guardiola had said he would not stand in Arteta’s way and talks had progressed to the point where the potential make-up of his backroom staff had been discussed.
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Arteta ticked plenty of boxes for Gazidis, who was looking for somebody to represent the club’s values, including giving youth a chance, and play fast and attractive football.
Gazidis had made it clear he was not afraid to make a left-field appointment, noting on the day Wenger’s departure was confirmed that the Frenchman had not been “on many people’s radar screens” in 1996.
But Emery, too, ticked the boxes and, crucially, he came to look like less of a gamble. It is understood that Arteta was told his lack of experience came to count against him. Gazidis is not a man synonymous with risk-taking. After careful consideration, analysing each argument from every conceivable angle, he has come to see Emery as the outstanding selection.
The new manager is expected to have around £50m, plus money generated from sales, to spend on reshaping the squad, which is broadly in line with what Wenger was granted, annually, in recent seasons. It is not a lavish budget and it is clear that the new man’s coaching skills will have to be up to scratch from the outset.
Santi Cazorla, the Arsenal midfielder, had been linked with a possible player-coach role under Arteta but he has now left the club upon the expiry of his contract. He has not played since he injured his achilles in October 2016, although he remains determined to carry on as a player.
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Gazidis said: “Santi is always one of my favourite players to watch. His natural ability with both feet, his speed of thought and movement were central to our best performances in recent years. He plays with a joy and freedom which is very rare. We wish him well for the future and thank him for his important contribution to our club.”
The tactically astute and well prepared Spaniard will find a more receptive audience in the Emirates dressing room than with an unruly PSG squad
Neymar is not one for ‘homework’, but that didn’t stop Unai Emery. “We are analysing some videos with him to see how he can grow,” said Emery last year, “especially in his positioning and how to work with his colleagues.” While Emery’s quiet meticulousness may have proven crucial in the past, spending 12 hours looking over videos for every game, with hindsight his persistence with the Brazilian should be regarded as having been a little optimistic.
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While Neymar may have balked at the idea of incessant videos, reportedly complaining to the Paris Saint-Germain board about the Basque technician’s demands, Emery might find his new audience in north London to be more receptive. He is a supremely detail-orientated and tactically astute coach, and although this style of management did not play out well in Paris, the Arsenal squad will experience a heightened level of structure in their preparation. “Emery put on so many videos I ran out of popcorn,” former player Joaquín quipped, “he’s obsessed by football, it’s practically an illness.”
Where Arsène Wenger’s teams may have descended into the painfully one-dimensional, Emery’s outlook is one of nuance and precision, which may well suit Arsenal’s developing team rather more than the entrenched, haughty collection of Parisian stars.
Crucially for Arsenal’s philosophy as a club, Emery, despite rampant short-termism in Paris, managed to maintain a degree of focus on youth. His development of Adrien Rabiot from an inconsistent, naive ball-playing midfielder to the physical, confident, box-to-box marauder he is at his best today should be applauded. While the introduction of 22-year-old French centre-back Presnel Kimpembe, now arguably PSG’s best defender, and Argentine international Giovani Lo Celso is also a credit to Emery’s faith in youth and his ability to evolve talent.
Timeline Unai Emery: the story so far Show Hide The 46-year-old's managerial career began in Spain's second division and has taken him to Russia, France and major European honours Playing career cut short While Arsène Wenger is being unveiled at Arsenal, Emery settles in at Toledo in Spain's second tier after leaving his first club, Real Sociedad. Emery, a left-sided midfielder, also turned out for Racing Ferrol, Leganés and Lorca Deportiva before a knee injury ended his playing career at the age of 32. Fairytale at Lorca Emery is offered the manager's position at Lorca Deportiva after his knee injury, and goes on to lead the team into Spain's second division. In his first full season, Lorca miss promotion to La Liga by just five points. Breakthrough at Almería Emery comes to the attention of Spain's big clubs after guiding Almería to their first promotion to La Liga, and securing an eighth-place finish in the top flight. He is snapped up by Valencia in the summer of 2008. Reviving Valencia Emery replaces Ronald Koeman at cash-strapped Valencia and sets about returning the club to the Champions League. He leaves Valencia in 2012 after three consecutive third-place league finishes. Failed Moscow mission The first blot on Emery's managerial copy book comes in Russia, where he lasts just six months at Spartak Moscow, and is sacked after a 5-1 derby defeat to Dynamo. Europa League three-peat After returning to La Liga with Sevilla in January 2013, Emery leads them to three consecutive Europa League titles. Sevilla beat Liverpool 3-1 in Basle to complete the hat-trick in the manager's penultimate game in charge. Champions League pain in Spain PSG finish second to Arsenal in their Champions League group, and then thrash Barcelona 4-0 in the first leg of their last-16 tie. On the verge of a European breakthrough, they lose the second leg 6-1 and crash out. PSG also lose out to Monaco in the French title race. Signing off with a treble Emery wins Ligue 1 and both Cup competitions in France to take his trophy haul at the club to five, but another last-16 Champions League exit leads to his departure at the end of the season.
Despite the success he enjoyed with a more counter-attacking 4-2-3-1 set-up with Sevilla, Emery was reluctantly forced to switch to a more possession-based 4-3-3 at PSG after early attempts to move Marco Verratti into a No 10 role failed and the dressing room pressured him into reverting to the favoured formation which Laurent Blanc and Carlo Ancelotti had previously practised. The combination of detailed tactical insight and counter-attacking brought about a glorious, unprecedented hat-trick of Europa League titles at Sevilla, a record that appealed to PSG, a club obsessed with European success. His time with Valencia also proved fruitful, a trio of third-place finishes between 2010 and 2012 being highlights before their recent lean period.
Nevertheless, despite five trophies in two seasons in Paris, Emery’s stay in the French capital has been characterised by mishaps that fall somewhere between unfortunate circumstances and outright errors of judgment. Player power has long been an endemic issue, ingrained during the Zlatan Ibrahimovic era. Neymar’s arrival, and the club’s subsequent pandering to him, has only played into the idea that the PSG squad is particularly unruly. Emery, however, while willing, was unable to address this.
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When Neymar and Edinson Cavani’s relationship exploded following a squabble over who should take responsibility for set-pieces at the beginning of season, with Thiago Silva reportedly having to separate the two strikers after the home game against Lyon in September, Emery said that they could “sort it out themselves” rather than decisively asserting his authority.
PSG’s squad in the Qatar Sports Investments era has proven prohibitively cliquey and, the Brazilian contingent became so strong over the summer, with the additions of Neymar and Dani Alves, that Emery was discouraged from removing a failing and noticeably aging Thiago Silva as captain. Another example of weak man-management was illustrated with the cases of both Rabiot and Ángel Di María, who over the last year have succeeded in forcing him to play them once again in their preferred positions, despite the Spaniard’s efforts to remove them from the deep-lying midfield role and right-wing respectively.
Understandably, Emery received severe criticism for the now infamous “remontada” defeat to Barcelona last year. Here however, it seems he was a victim of a lack of mental fortitude in a squad, which he admittedly failed to address himself. PSG under QSI have long lacked heart and the Qataris have struggled with, or even ignored, the significance of the club’s identity. PSG’s lack of gumption in potentially era-defining Champions’ League ties seems rooted in a sense that while winning is important for the squad, winning for PSG is not, and when put under pressure, they dramatically wilt.
At Valencia, Emery gave his team instructions on USB drives – and gave a blank one to a player he suspected was not reading them
The 6-1 defeat at the Camp Nou was not a product of an omnipotent Barcelona display but willed into existence by sheer determination, a drive Emery, Blanc and even Ancelotti have been unable to foster. The ferocious press and intensity of the 4-0 win in the first leg, Emery’s doing, evaporated, Thiago Silva’s leadership was non-existent and unfathomable mistakes were made, all largely beyond Emery’s control. He has also been forced to operate in something of a box at PSG, constrained not just by his unruly squad, but also by the club hierarchy, with little say in player recruitment policy, leading to a ludicrously top-heavy squad.
Whether Emery is the antidote to the furore that has surrounded Arsenal during Wenger’s final years in charge or the correct choice at such a crossroads is debatable, but Emery will certainly improve Arsenal’s players and mould the side into being far more tactically streetwise.
His stoic, measured demeanour is comparable to Wenger’s, particularly with the press. As a result, he too will be unable to act as a lightning rod to draw attention away from any negative coverage or stimulate supporters with a fiery personality. However, in contrast to the PSG dressing room, Emery is likely to discover a more malleable and open-minded audience in England, which will suit his style.
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At Valencia, Emery’s video ‘homework’ was delivered via USB drive. When he suspected one player was not following his advice, Emery gave him a blank drive. “Did you watch it?” Emery asked. “Yes, don’t worry boss,” came the reply. Emery may not be charismatic, but his stint at PSG must largely be viewed as an anomaly in an otherwise successful managerial career, built upon tenacious hard work and strokes of occasional tactical genius.
“Arsène who?” was the famous headline when Arsenal last hired a new manager in 1996, and Emery’s appointment will ask more similar questions of the Frenchman’s successor than Arsenal fans might have hoped when this day came. But if the squad commits wholeheartedly to Emery’s modus operandi, then both club and manager have a genuine chance to disprove the doubters and show that they deserve to be mentioned amongst the bracket of Europe’s best.
VIVA - Unai Emery menjadi kandidat terkuat sebagai manajer anyar Arsenal. Bahkan, kabarnya The Gunners akan segera mengumumkan Emery sebagai suksesor Arsene Wenger dalam waktu dekat ini. Usai ditinggal oleh Wenger, beberapa nama kandidat manajer mulai bermunculan. Seperti Mikel Arteta, Massimiliano Allegri hingga Luis Enrique. Akan tetapi, Emery kini menjadi calon tunggal sebagai manajer Arsenal. Emery memang baru saja meninggalkan jabatan pelatih Paris Saint-Germain yang dua musim terakhir diembannya.
Seperti dilaporkan Sky Sports, bila pelatih berusia 46 tahun tersebut sudah berada di London dan tengah bernegosiasi dengan manajemen Arsenal. Kabarnya, peresmian Emery akan dilakukan Arsenal pada pekan ini. Emery memang memiliki catatan cukup apik sebagai pelatih. Dia sudah mengoleksi 10 trofi sejak 2005, yakni tiga trofi Liga Europa untuk Sevilla dan tujuh gelar domestik untuk PSG. Sementara itu, Emery juga disebut ingin turun tangan dalam perekrutan pemain anyar Arsenal di musim panas. Arsenal sendiri memiliki anggaran sebesar 50 juta poundsterling pada jendela transfer nanti.
Emery won the Europa League three years in a row with Sevilla
Arsenal's switch from the seeming formality of a coronation of former captain Mikel Arteta to naming Unai Emery as Arsene Wenger's successor may smack of an 11th-hour case of cold feet.
The appointment of 36-year-old Arteta, a key member of Manchester City's manager Pep Guardiola's title-winning coaching team, was regarded as a certainty until former Paris St-German coach Emery's name emerged on Monday.
It was a dramatic twist that was greeted with widespread shock - and yet there is logic to Arsenal's change of direction.
Arsenal go for experience
Maybe Arteta was simply too much of a risk for Gazidis and Arsenal
Arteta had appeal for both the purists and the romantics - he combined Arsenal pedigree with the glory of Guardiola's 100-point Premier League record breakers, regarded there as the manager's most trusted sounding board.
He has a glowing, growing reputation and was of serious interest to another former club - Everton - when they sacked Ronald Koeman in October.
There was, however, a huge element of risk in Arsenal appointing an unproven manager as successor to someone who had become an institution over 22 years at the club.
In the end, given the stakes, maybe it was simply too much of a risk for chief executive Ivan Gazidis and his fellow decision-makers, too much of a leap into the unknown at a crucial point in the club's history as they face an uphill battle to pull themselves back into contention for the Premier League's top four, let alone the title.
Arteta captained Arsenal to victory in the 2013-14 FA Cup
Arteta may be one for Arsenal's future, although whether that prospect has been soured by this experience remains to be seen.
He will now return to the backbenches at Manchester City, not exactly a hardship, but this will still be a blow after seeming so close to the top job at a genuine Premier League superpower.
Former Arsenal stars Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry had been touted as contenders, along with ex-Barcelona coach Luis Enrique, Juventus' Massimiliano Allegri and former Chelsea and Bayern Munich boss Carlo Ancelotti - but the winner of the race made his late run on the rails.
Emery's name drifted into the public domain late on but he will have been on Arsenal's radar from the moment he left PSG following two seasons in which he won Ligue 1 once and four domestic cups.
He was unable to win the Champions League, conceding a 4-0 first leg advantage to Barcelona in harrowing fashion last term before an exit to this season's finalists Real Madrid at his second attempt. His failure to satisfy the desire of PSG's Qatari-owners for European success saw him displaced by German Thomas Tuchel.
And yet he has the track record that, on the surface, makes him a far more logical choice than Arteta.
He can boast a remarkable record of three straight Europa League wins with Sevilla, the last a comprehensive 3-1 win against Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool in Basel in May 2016.
And, in the final reckoning, it is this that looks to have persuaded Arsenal to go with that they will regard as a safer bet who can actually place his managerial honours on the table.
Gazidis also knows his own reputation, and perhaps future, at Arsenal, will be shaped by the appointment of Wenger's successor.
Emery still represents risk
The news that Emery was close to being appointed Arsenal manager drew a mixed initial response.
There was approval in some quarters that Arsenal had switched their sights from the rookie Arteta to Emery, with his fine European record - but there was also sympathy for Arteta, especially from those who had grown used to the idea of a seventh former player taking charge.
Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright told BBC Radio 5 live: "What's going on at Arsenal? Where's Unai Emery come from? I can't get it out of my head.
"You'd have thought that by now they would have known exactly what's going on. Emery has had loads of money to spend at Paris St-Germain and now has to come to Arsenal with £50m, with a bunch of players who have been playing in second gear.
"His coaching ability will have to get going instantly and he will have to find some gems instantly."
But Wright added: "I wouldn't be disgruntled as an Arsenal fan about Emery. I think the fact he's come out of left-field when everyone's thinking 'it's going to be Arteta', that's the only problem. If we do see a difference in intensity, drive and consistency, everybody will get onside and that's all Arsenal fans want to see."
Emery (right) won the French league title with the help of Neymar - whom he signed from Barcelona last year in a world record £200m transfer
Emery has a limited command of English, and of course is untried in the Premier League.
He is, however, regarded primarily as a fine, meticulous coach who is happy to work with a director of football, as he did so successfully with Monchi at Sevilla. He will be embedded within Arsenal's structure alongside head of football relations Raul Sanllehi and head of recruitment Sven Mislintat.
He has a hands-on, enterprising coaching style in which he gets close to players. Emery was famous at Sevilla for his slavish attention to detail, especially using videos. There is no danger of Arsenal's players being unsure of his demands.
Emery will also add to the Premier League's technical area theatre, an animated figure living every kick, often from a crouching position.
And it is worth remembering how he produced a series of tactical tweaks to completely outflank Liverpool manager Klopp in that 2016 Europa League final, transforming a 1-0 interval deficit for Sevilla into a 3-1 win that was more convincing even than that scoreline suggests.
Emery's arrival carries, risk, albeit less than Arteta, but it is one Arsenal clearly believe is well worth taking after their recruitment process.
