Arnaut Danjuma has labelled ex-Arsenal boss, Unai Emery, a ‘tactical mastermind’ after Villarreal beat Bayern Munich 1-0 in the Champions League on Wednesday night, as he told BT Sport.
Whilst Emery helped Arsenal reach the Europa League final, his reign in north London ended with him getting his marching orders in before Christmas of 2019.
The Spaniard would have felt that he has a thing or two to prove, and in truth, he did just that in the faces of his former side last season.
On route to Villarreal winning the Europa League, the La Liga outfit knocked Mikel Arteta’s side out of the semi-final stage, before proceeding to beat Manchester United on penalties.
Now, the Yellow Submarine are standing tall in the biggest club competition in the world. And if they avoid defeat in Munich next week, then they will land themselves a semi-final spot in the Champions League.
Danjuma, who scored the only goal of the game last night, lauded Emery, his tactics and the plan he brought to the table against the German champions.
“I am not sure I should lay it wide open (Emery’s tactical plan) because we still have a second leg to play,” said Danjuma.
“I can assure you Unai is a tactical mastermind. His strategy always seems to work for us. We are confident in our manager and our manager is confident in us. And it goes hand-in-hand.
“Even tonight, his plan was so good and we even didn’t execute in the best way because there were a lot of chances we could have profited from more.”
Arsenal are hoping to return to the Champions League this season, whilst their former boss looks to cause the biggest of upsets.
The deficit for Bayern heading into the second-leg is only one goal, and as they proved against RB Salzburg when they put seven past them in their return leg tie of the previous round, this tie isn’t over yet.
But if Emery pulls this off, then he really is punching well above Villarreal’s weight and proving many doubters wrong.
He is already doing a stellar job and those years at Arsenal where he would have felt the world was on his shoulders, now seems a long, long away.
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