Arsenal sack Emery: Next move crucial after Gunners solve easiest problem

Under-achieving football clubs tend not to hang on to good players.

Such analysis might be as rudimentary as most of Shkodran Mustafi’s defensive efforts over recent seasons, but this is the simple reason why Unai Emery’s time at Arsenal was up.

The head coach appointed on the back of major honours won at Sevilla and Paris Saint-Germain was one of many problems at Emirates Stadium. His increasingly rudderless stewardship of the first team was simply the easiest to fix.

Of course, his squad was not perfect. Death, taxes and Arsenal needing a reliable central defender are the three certainties of our times.

That inevitably porous backline compromised all areas of the team, but the lack of anything resembling a plan or penetration in attack was damning, given what Emery had at his disposal.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored in the tenure-ending defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday and has 10 goals in 16 appearances this season, with 51 in 81 Arsenal games overall.

Aubameyang’s great friend Alexandre Lacazette boasts a Gunners record of 40 in 98 games. Emery was unable to effectively harness two of the most clinical number nines in Europe.

Players of this calibre will not continue to arrive for a staple diet of Europa League football. The same can be said of club-record signing Nicolas Pepe or Real Madrid loanee Dani Ceballos – two men who added weight to the argument Arsenal had “won” the close-season transfer window and two coveted performers Emery has failed to get a tune from.

This is before we get to the curious disfunction of the alliance between Emery and star playmaker Mesut Ozil.

From the public recriminations that accompanied the end of his Germany career last year to being the target of an attempted carjacking at the start of this season, the former Real Madrid playmaker has experienced a punishingly turbulent period.

don’t let anyone or anything ruin your mood.  || With my brothers @MustafiOfficial @seadk6  #COYG #training #M1O @Arsenal pic.twitter.com/rTKrae14pk

— Mesut Ozil (@MesutOzil1088) November 8, 2019

That may or may not adequately explain Ozil often being on the margins of Emery’s reign. Sure, he wore the captain’s armband. But it felt like everyone barring Gunnersaurus had a go at some point.

The commitment to a hard-running style during a successful first half of last season – those salad days of “We’ve got our Arsenal back” – was an understandable reason for Ozil’s diminished status, but his absence from this term’s confused mess until recent weeks was harder to fathom.

Granit Xhaka has drawn considerable supporter ire but rarely looks so hapless when starring for Switzerland, while young Frenchman Matteo Guendouzi has bustled his way into arguably the most gifted squad in international football.

Interim boss Freddie Ljungberg, and whoever replaces Emery in the long term, will have the raw materials to affect a swift upturn in fortunes following a sapping winless run of seven matches. They will also be wary the clock is ticking on the days when Arsenal can expect to have such a collection of talent.

That other dynasty of the previous decade, Manchester United, now have an under-qualified manager and a remarkably thin squad given their outlay. Arsene Wenger did not bow out in a blaze of glory like Alex Ferguson, but the warnings from Old Trafford over how a post-imperial period can play out are clear.

Whether it’s an exciting young pretender like Mikel Arteta or an experienced elite operator like Max Allegri, Emery’s successor must quickly demonstrate a clear path to improvement after a supposed safe pair of hands lost his grip on what is likely to be a last chance with a European heavyweight.

The lack of a common thread through the styles and credentials of the supposed frontrunners does not suggest a club that knows what it wants. After frequently appearing at cross purposes with Emery, the Gunners hierarchy must decide on their vision and commit to someone who fits it.

If Arsenal, their new coach, an unpopular board and frothingly angry fanbase cannot pull together and get this squad heading in the right direction, it will only become harder to turn the ship around from this point.