Unai Emery sacking: Ahead of the game? Arsenal are way off the pace

ARSENAL likes to boast it is 'always ahead of the game.' Maybe they were, once, but now the club is in a mess of their own making having sacked head coach Unai Emery less than halfway through his second season in charge.

Former player Freddie Ljungberg has no managerial experience and has been placed in charge until a permanent solution is found.

If the people running Arsenal really were up to speed, let alone ahead of the game, they would have made this decision a long time ago, with a worthy replacement lined up.

Players and supporters of the north London club only have to look a couple of miles down the road to the gleaming £1bn stadium rising above the impoverished back streets of Tottenham to see an operation running with ambition and purpose.

Much loved manager Mauricio Pochettino was sacked a few months after leading them to the Champions League final, albeit amid a run of appalling Premier League results, ruthlessly replaced by Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese arrived with no warmth from the club's supporter base but a begrudging respect that he could help them towards the next step in their progression and turn potential into trophies on the pitch and big money sponsorship deals off it.

Stories going around north London this week intimated Tottenham acted so swiftly because they found out Arsenal were courting the Portuguese too. Ahead of the game? Way off the pace this time, Arsenal.

Arsenal fans will argue the shift in power will not be complete until 'that lot' start winning Premier League titles and rival success on that level, but they are kidding themselves if they think their club is in a better state today.

Arsenal's stadium was virtually empty (25,000 tops) as they slumped to a Europa League defeat against Frankfurt to half-hearted boos on Thursday night – Emery's seventh successive match without a win – just two nights after Tottenham's new home was packed out to 60,000 delirious fans willing their way to a comeback victory over Olympiacos in the Champions League – Mourinho's second successive win as their new boss.

The Spaniard had been given a vote of confidence and a very winnable run of matches to restore confidence after they lost so convincingly at Leicester before the last international break. The Arsenal board wanted him to survive through to Sunday's match at Norwich and their following game against West Ham before having to make a longer term decision but Frankfurt was a new low among a pile of recent low points It is clear, to those who had followed his career, Emery was always the wrong man to replace Arsene Wenger after his remarkable two-decade transformational reign at Arsenal.

He was a loser in power struggles with the likes of Neymar Jnr in his previous job at Paris St Germain, where he was not regarded as an elite manager.

His tactics and in-game management decisions were regarded as poor and that has been the case at Arsenal.

The situation was said to be the same at Valencia, where he carried little authority amid players nowhere close to Neymar's status. One leading player there, Joaquin, famously said: “Emery played so many videos I ran out of popcorn.'

It is said the Arsenal players found his lengthy analysis sessions, sometimes in excess of two hours, leaving them bored and baffled in equal measure.

Would it have been better had Emery mastered English, or used an interpreter? Probably not. Footballers want to be led decisively and play football – not watch videos and tactics boards.

Emery's three Europa League titles at Seville left many asking 'why weren't you get into the Champions League?'

Like Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Wenger was and still is a very hard act to follow, so the most important decision in a generation was to appoint the correct successor.

An extended unbeaten run early in Emery's first season suggested departing chief executive Ivan Gazidis and his team of kingmakers Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi had done well, but the football was poor, the results more than fortunate and the season tailed off in dramatic fashion.

Failure to secure a top four finish was down to Emery's inability to select the right players and tactics for the matches that mattered most – just one point from home games against struggling Brighton and Crystal Palace, for example, would have them back in the Champions League before they went to Baku needing to beat Chelsea in the Europa League final for salvation. They were thrashed and have never recovered.

A glimmer of hope pierced the gloom when a promising summer transfer window indicated Arsenal's power brokers were backing the ambition of the supporters, but the expensive new toys came without any instructions for the head coach.

And Emery, we now know, is not one to work out solutions for himself. Club record signing Nicolas Pepe topped a £130m window outlay, but has been reduced to a gibbering wreck and cannot even get in the team anymore.

Emery lost captain Laurent Koscielny in a bitter summer split and let the players choose Granit Xhaka as replacement after an extended period of indecision. And how well did that go?

Other strange calls included letting Wales midfielder Aaron Ramsey leave without a transfer fee and play mind games with Mesut Ozil to the extent the German seems happy to just sit out his £350,000 weekly contract whether he is in the team or not. There was always going to be one winner there – not Unai Emery.

Now star strikers Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alex Lacazette are looking at exit routes too.

If it seems harsh on a likeable coach, do not fear for him. He will be well paid off and is a modern manager who has always worked in a fast-changing hire and fire environment without any long-term security.

His best mate in the Premier League was Watford boss Javi Gracia, a fellow Spaniard who occupied the neighbouring London Colney training ground, just inside the M25 on the outskirts of the capital. When asked for his reaction to Gracia's September sacking he laughed as he recounted how they were together when news of his dismissal came through. “That's a funny story, isn't it?' he said to a group of us in the Arsenal media centre.

Not really, but it told a story of how he and so many of his fellow coaches and managers recognise security does not come with the job.

And can he defend Arsenal's form this season after such a bumper summer transfer turn around? This is their worst start to a season since 1992 and they have not won a Premier League match since the start of October. A worrying eight points off the top four and the only team in the top half of the Premier League table with a MINUS goal difference.

What next for Arsenal? The board is split with powerless old school members such as chairman Sir Chips Keswick considering his future while Sanllehi is the main link man to errant American owners Stan Kroenke and his son, Josh.

Pochettino will get a mention, but is too much a Tottenham man to consider the job just now, former Arsenal captain and Man City coach Mikel Arteta has no managerial experience and Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo is not an overly inspiring option.

Former Juventus manager Max Allegri was considered before, as was Leicester's Brendan Rodgers, so will they be approached again?

Either way, it is unlikely Arsenal will act as decisively as Tottenham in sorting out their mess and their supporters had better prepare for another trophy-less season and no top flight European football in sight.

'Wenger Out' they chanted.

'Be careful what you wish for' was a popular response.

*The author has been covering Arsenal since 88-89.