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Unai Emery makes claim that’ll really annoy some Arsenal fans

Unai Emery the head coach (Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images)
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Arsenal sacked the Spanish manager a little earlier this season.

Unai Emery the head coach

Unai Emery has cited Arsenal fans as the reason behind his dismissal earlier this season.

The Spaniard was appointed Arsene Wenger’s successor in North London in May of 2018 but lasted only 18 months in the job.

Arsenal sacked the former Paris Saint-Germain and Sevilla boss in November after a run of seven games without a win, and directly after a 2-1 Europa League defeat by Eintracht Frankfurt at the Emirates.

It was the Gunners’ worst run without a win since February of 1992 and the club were eight points adrift in the race for a top-four finish at the time of Emery’s departure.

Emery’s side were booed off after losing to the German outfit in his last game in charge during what was an increasingly hostile time inside Arsenal’s stadium.

And the 48-year-old believes that the supporters are largely responsible for him losing his job.

He told Marca: “There were several problems: four captains; the [Mesut] Ozil – [Sead] Kolasinac case; [Nicolas] Pepe’s signing, which needs time to be that of France … We didn’t play well, that’s for sure.

“That brought us bad results, there was no improvement, the fans focused on me and they threw me out. But I keep the positive things, there were many.”

Is Emery right? In a word, no.

While the hostility from the terraces could’ve played a role in Arsenal’s decline under Emery, there wouldn’t have been discontent in the first place had the players not stopped responding to the coach’s methods.

The dip in results preceded fan unrest.

Seven games without a victory – their worst winless run in 27 years – was a disastrous run of form and one that paints a picture of a team who simply stopped playing for their head coach and fans of the North Londoners should be very angry with Emery’s suggestion that they played more of a role in his own axing than he did.

Unai Emery  the head coach