Wright slams Arsenal over Emery

Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright has offered a scathing assessment of the club's reported decision to appoint Unai Emery as manager.

There were widespread claims in the UK media on Monday that the Gunners have chosen the former Paris Saint-Germain coach as the replacement for Arsene Wenger and will announce his arrival this week.

Manchester City assistant coach Mikel Arteta had appeared to be the favourite for the role until the apparent change of heart from the Arsenal hierarchy at the last moment.

With the likes of Thomas Tuchel, Massimiliano Allegri and Brendan Rodgers having also been linked in recent weeks, Wright has compared his old club to "a sushi shop" in their search for a new manager.

"It's a mess with what's going on," he told BBC Radio 5 live. "They only found out not too long ago that Allegri's price was too high.

"They haven't pinpointed who they wanted. Now all of a sudden Unai Emery is in the driving seat on the back of PSG.

"It's like they're at the sushi shop. 'You know the stuff that's just going past? Yeah, I'll have that. I'll take that. I'll leave them ones. No, I'll take that one now'.

 

14 February 2018

"What's going on at Arsenal, where's Emery come from? I can't get it out of my head.

"You'd have thought that by now they would have known exactly what's going on. Emery's now the favourite, he's going to be the manager?"

Emery won three consecutive Europa League trophies with Sevilla before taking charge at PSG, where he won seven trophies, including the domestic quadruple in 2017-18.

Wright, however, does not see how the 46-year-old can be expected to replicate that level of success given Arsenal have a reported transfer budget of just £50million.

"He had a load of money at PSG and is supposed to be coming to Arsenal with £50million and a bunch of players that have been playing in second gear," he said.

"His coaching ability is going to have to get going instantly and he's going to have to find some gems in the transfer market. Good luck to him if he comes in and gets it. I'll back him.

"The fact is you just want people upstairs to be decisive with what they're doing. I think they've had the time. This is the problem I've got."