I would only blame arteta with one 8th place finish. We were dropping like a stone by the time he took over and inherited the mess from emery and Freddie. Stabilised us and we finished 8th and won fa cup. However, that 8th place finish is as much on emery and Freddie as it is arteta.
Arsenal were a point away from UCL places in Emery’s first full season and had it not been for auba missing a last minute penalty Vs spurs or emery doing galaxy brain and deciding to rest key players against Brighton and palace at home at the end of the season we would have made top 4. So the team wasn’t “barely good enough to qualify for Europe”.
However emery was a victim of inheriting a mess of Wenger’s final season, gazidis incompetence as a CEO and mislintats “diamond eye” for transfers which was basically ex Dortmund players.
However, he also wasn’t this amazing coach that’s gone under the radar, we held 4 in Baku to Chelsea under a manager who didn’t want to be there and who’s fans that didn’t want him there. He also decided to play a guy in goal who had already accepted a job at Chelsea for the next season. Bought Leno to replace cech cos he couldn’t play out the back and plays him in the biggest game of the season. We were conceding 20 shots on our goal every game, our CDM he bought was played as 10, the players forgot how to make simple and effective passes (freddies first coaching session involved him explaining simple passing to the players) and the football after the initial honeymoon period was boring (pass to kolasinac and get him to cut it back) even in Wenger’s worst years we’d play some decent football.
I would only blame arteta with one 8th place finish. We were dropping like a stone by the time he took over and inherited the mess from emery and Freddie. Stabilised us and we finished 8th and won fa cup. However, that 8th place finish is as much on emery and Freddie as it is arteta. Arsenal were a point away from UCL places in Emery’s first full season and had it not been for auba missing a last minute penalty Vs spurs or emery doing galaxy brain and deciding to rest key players against Brighton and palace at home at the end of the season we would have made top 4. So the team wasn’t “barely good enough to qualify for Europe”.
However emery was a victim of inheriting a mess of Wenger’s final season, gazidis incompetence as a CEO and mislintats “diamond eye” for transfers which was basically ex Dortmund players.
However, he also wasn’t this amazing coach that’s gone under the radar, we held 4 in Baku to Chelsea under a manager who didn’t want to be there and who’s fans that didn’t want him there. He also decided to play a guy in goal who had already accepted a job at Chelsea for the next season. Bought Leno to replace cech cos he couldn’t play out the back and plays him in the biggest game of the season. We were conceding 20 shots on our goal every game, our CDM he bought was played as 10, the players forgot how to make simple and effective passes (freddies first coaching session involved him explaining simple passing to the players) and the football after the initial honeymoon period was boring (pass to kolasinac and get him to cut it back) even in Wenger’s worst years we’d play some decent football.