So far this summer, most of my concentration has been on England at the World Cup, which I’ve been writing about here. However, that hasn’t stopped me from absorbing everything Arsenal in that time. To get back into the swing of things with Arsenal, I thought there’d be no better place to start than with Unai Emery and how I feel at the moment with him going into the new season.
Thankfully, for me, most of what’s happened since it was announced that Arsene Wenger was leaving has exceeded my expectations. Following the Wenger announcement, it was imperative that the board got this decision right and I feel they did just that.
Before Emery’s name popped up and the Mikel Arteta debacle its fair to say everything was up in the air. However, in Emery I believe we’ve got a manager who fits our situation perfectly. Especially as he has been given a three-year deal.
For me, Emery’s primary job is to get Arsenal back into the Champions League, something his well-known track record at Valencia and Sevilla encourages me that he will do.
However, another big reason I’ve been encouraged by Emery and the board this summer is their business. I’ll look to write more pieces specifically about the business and other aspects of this summer but for now here’s what I have to say on the matter.
It was made clear in the summer that Arsenal wouldn’t have as much money to spend as competitors but nonetheless, the club have moved quickly with their signings. At the point I’m writing this we’ve just announced Sokratis so that makes it three incoming players and pre-season has just started.
With this being a World Cup year along with the fact that the Premier League transfer deadline has been moved forward this is great to see. It’s possibly the biggest advantage of having Emery as just a ‘head coach’ as he’s given time for himself and his new signings (apart still at/resting from World Cup action) time to bed in and become familiar with each other for what is probably the hardest start to Premier League life he could’ve asked for.
Taking the fact that his first two league games are against Manchester City and Chelsea, it’ll be great to see two wins but realistically that probably won’t happen. However, something I definitely hope won’t happen is a meltdown.
However, we won’t have to wait that long to see how Emery has set up the team as our first pre-season game against Boreham Wood on July 14th. I’ll be back before that though expressing views on our transfer activity, some youngsters and more.
