Unai Emery has penned an open letter to Arsenal fans after the club decided to part company with him on Friday morning.
The Spaniard was dismissed as the Gunners are currently on a seven-game winless streak across all competitions, while he failed to deliver on key objectives last season too.
In turn, the hierarchy seemingly felt that this was the right time to make a change with Freddie Ljungberg put in temporary charge as interim head coach, while the search continues for a long-term successor.
As seen below, Emery has now addressed the Arsenal fans after his exit from the Emirates, and although many undoubtedly turned on him and called for a managerial change to be made, they will surely all appreciate his kind words and emotion as evidently the job meant a lot to him and he’ll be desperately disappointed that it didn’t work out as hoped.
“It has been an honour to be the Arsenal head coach,” he wrote, as noted on the club’s official site.
“To all the fans, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for helping me to understand and feel the greatness of Arsenal. To all of you who have supported us from every corner of the globe, all of you who have come to the Emirates, all of you who have waited in the rain and cold just to greet me after a game. I want to tell all of you that I have worked with passion, with commitment and with effort.
“I would have liked nothing more than to have achieved better results for you.
“I also want to send a message of gratitude to all Arsenal employees for the way they have treated me. The greatness of Arsenal is in every director, executive, employee, assistant and volunteer.
“In particular, I want to highlight Ivan Gazidis, who welcomed me to the club, and Raul Sanllehi, Edu and Vinai Venkatesham for their respect, companionship and help. Until the very last minute I have been treated with honour and honesty. And of course, I send my sincere gratitude to the Kroenke family, for their trust.
“It has been a year and a half full of emotions, of great moments and some other more bitter ones, but not a single day has gone by without me stopping to think about how lucky I have been to work for this club with these players and their professional and personal qualities.
“They have always honoured the shirt they wear. They deserve your support.
“I had already experienced a lot in football, but I have enjoyed and learned a lot in England, in the Premier League, about respect for professionals and about the purity of football.
“My best wishes always.
COYG.”
Time will tell who Arsenal appoint next, but as they sit down in eighth place in the Premier League table and eight points adrift of the top four, they’ll hope that Ljungberg can oversee an immediate improvement in the short term.