Jamie Carragher: You can make an argument that Unai Emery is the third best manager in this Premier League. If you back over the last 12 months since he came in at Villa, if you are talking about Man Utd, Aston Villa are a better coached team than United. There is no doubt about that.
It’s all about who was in charge (ownership) at the time. KSE weren’t full owners under Emery until 2018, the budget was never going to be there, once they took over and Josh stepped up in an executive role and changes were made. When they sacked Emery we were 8th after having drawn 3 and lost 2 to lesser clubs, we were clearly going backwards. The Pepe deal certainly hurt Emery because seemingly the only person who wanted Pepe was Raul Sanllehi. The FA Cup is what gave Arteta the time he needed to completely rebuild the squad, and I think the lockdown might have also helped in distracting people from football and giving a further grace period. Timing is everything as they say.
It’s all about who was in charge (ownership) at the time. KSE weren’t full owners under Emery until 2018, the budget was never going to be there, once they took over and Josh stepped up in an executive role and changes were made. When they sacked Emery we were 8th after having drawn 3 and lost 2 to lesser clubs, we were clearly going backwards. The Pepe deal certainly hurt Emery because seemingly the only person who wanted Pepe was Raul Sanllehi. The FA Cup is what gave Arteta the time he needed to completely rebuild the squad, and I think the lockdown might have also helped in distracting people from football and giving a further grace period. Timing is everything as they say.