Unai Emery
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Unai Emery Etxegoien
Current Club/Country: N/A.
Previous Clubs/Countries: Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Sevilla, Spartak Moscow, Valencia, Almeria, Lorca Deportivo.
Honours: Ligue 1 2017/18. French Cup 2016/17, 2017/18. French League Cup 2016/17. Europa League 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16. French Super Cup 2016/17, 2017/18.
Emery is one of the oddest managers around, somehow he has achieved feats far beyond his actual ability, with some of the biggest slices of pure luck that I have ever witnessed. Winning those Europa Leagues on the bounce and getting the jobs at PSG and Arsenal on the back of them were pure luck.
On the plus side, Emery can get his teams to play watchable, attacking football and they are usually very good at going forward. The problems are, in large part, his inability to organise the defence. It is almost laughable how bad his teams are at defending.
No matter what defenders he has at his disposal, he manages to make them look like amateur Sunday league players who have no idea about positioning. It is hard to understand exactly what he is doing in training to ruin good players in such a way.
Added to that, his teams always suffer from a lack of fitness, you can see them tire towards the end of each half. It does make you wonder if all those video sessions, watching tactical videos compiled by Emery and his staff, are actually at the expense of the training with the ball, rather than as well as.
There does seem to be a real lack of organisation of the team, with his teams playing more like eleven individuals. That is something that more time on the training pitches working as a group would improve. Watching videos can help players improve their individual game, but it does not help a team work together as a group.
Understanding like that comes from playing together until you understand your team mates and how they think. Learning when and where they will make runs or drop off. The more players play together, in training or in real matches, the better they understand each other. Watching Emery's teams play, you have to wonder if they understand a thing about each other.
Added to that, there is a serious problem with his man-management. Emery finds a way to upset his technical players at every club. He seems to struggle to keep his players happy for long periods, but in particular those skilful players that make teams tick. In each of his clubs he has fallen out with them and usually ends up excluding them from the team.
It is a very real weakness as he is unable to bring the team together as a group, which means when results start to go against his team, Emery's squads just fall apart, rather than pulling together. That is when his reign's as manager disintegrate into a mess all of his own making and he has to move on.
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