Unai Emery was officially sacked by Arsenal on Friday, but further details are reportedly being leaked on his relationship with his players.
The Spaniard saw his 18-month reign come to an end this week with the Gunners on a seven-game winless streak across all competitions.
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Further, after failure to secure a return to the Champions League for this season, it appears as though despite positives along the way, he was unable to achieve the objectives set out after he was appointed as Arsene Wenger’s successor.
While Arsenal now begin their search for a replacement, with club legend Freddie Ljungberg in temporary charge as interim head coach, it has been suggested that there was a serious breakdown in the relationship between Emery and his players.
According to the Evening Standard, the former Arsenal boss cut a lonely figure on their way back from a clash with Vitoria in the Europa League earlier this month as he sat alone on the team’s private plane.
Further, it’s suggested that some of the players openly mocked him with jibes over the captaincy situation and his accent and broken English, which the report notes effectively resulted in him losing control.
Add to the mix reported issues with communication and general issues with Emery failing to settle on a side and adding uncertainty and confusion with his own decisions, it sounds as though things were ultimately at breaking point before his departure.
Nevertheless, if accurate, the claims above are pretty damning of some of the players if they showed that level of unprofessionalism rather than doing everything possible to get on the same page as their coach for the good of the club.
Naturally, this is only one side of the story and perhaps the players themselves will come out and deny any truth behind the claims in the coming weeks. For now though, it doesn’t reflect well on them and it’s a sad development with regards to Emery’s failure to lead Arsenal to where they wanted to be.