Unai Emery continued his unrivalled record in the Europa League as Arsenal secured safe passage to the final in Baku with a 4-2 win against his former club Valencia.
The Spaniard, who has already won the competition three times with Sevilla, will now try and bag his fourth trophy (and a place in next season’s Champions League) when the Gunners face Chelsea on 29 May.
After watching Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alex Lacazette blast the Gunners to victory in the Mestalla, Emery faced the broadcast cameras and print media.
Here’s what he had to say…
(Via BT Sport)
On the performance…
“I am very proud of the players and the supporters. The players did all they could and we can be proud of the whole club.”
On his past success in this tournament…
“The past is for experience and can be used in the present. It is very difficult to play in finals and we took our opportunity today which we are happy about.”
On scoring four goals…
“We knew we had to be calm after they scored and we needed to control our emotions. It is very difficult to score four goals against this team because they are very organised. It gave us confidence to score quickly we know our strikers are taking chances.”
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More managerial reaction to come this morning …
Check out Valencia 2-4 Arsenal – player ratings
Well done Unai, it’s certainly been a season of ups and downs, but credit where it’s due.
It’s been a tough debut season for Emery. I don’t think he perhaps realised before taking the job quite how difficult it was going to be. I think managing this group of players probably looks like an easier proposition on the outside rather than it actually is when you get into it. As the range of abilities in this group of players is extreme to say the least. We’ve got one or two guys that are genuinely quality. Then we have others that in the harsh light of day, are beyond lucky to be playing in the Premier League, let… Read more »
Jumping on a coach that has been at the club for 9 months, coaching a team that he did not build and with all the limitations & injuries he had to endure, is IMHO very unfair to Emery. Could we have done better regarding the last 5-6 games? Yes but looking at it more spherical, it was something happening to all 4 teams chasing 4th place in their quest for balancing Europe & PL (look how many points Pochettino, Sarri & Ole Gunnar dropped as well in the respective games)…
Fair point but please, could with stop with the “coaching a team he did not build” rhetoric? It’s getting tiresome. It’s been addressed countless times both here and in the podcast – it’s a moot argument in modern football.
Each coach needs a certain type of players that he believes are suitable for the team that he wants to built. That’s why Pep, Klopp etc needed a couple of seasons bringing in these kind of players until they succeeded. It’s not a moot argument in my opinion…
The Klopp example is valid. Pep didn’t need a couple of seasons, he won the PL his second year with a 100 points, and his problem was more about adapting to the PL rather than changing the squad. By the way, why everybody keeps mentioning these two? What about Conte, who took a Chelsea side in shambles and led them to victory in one season? Ranieri, anyone? There are enough examples of managers coming in and making the most out of the situation at hand and of the players that are already there (and not only in the PL: Mourinho… Read more »
“But his tenure, performance wise, has been a bit disappointing”
It depends on what expectation(s) you have/had and what your definition of “performance” is.
Me, I expect him to get us into next years UCL. And he still has a chance of doing that. So I haven’t be disappointed yet.
Yes, I fear I may be disappointed. If that’s the case, I am prepared to give him a second season to get it right, like the disappointed Man City fans did with Pep in his first.
Tim Ness, man, Conte and Ranieri are also valid facts. But do have in mind that Emery inherited a team that has no wingers at all (which in today’s football is equal to disaster). Also, the team was hit by a long term injuries on (so to say) key players and positions. Also, and that’s a notorious fact, he was left to play one dimensional football (through central midfield). And, having in mind that he based his play through the middle, we face the fact that we have two overpaid players that are not much of a use and they… Read more »
I don’t think Conte’s a valid marker tbh. The Chelsea team he inherited had over one billion Russian pounds invested in it, and had won a title 2 seasons prior.
I mean, Chelsea signed David Luiz, Batshuayi, Alonso and Kante for over 100m that year. They were “in shambles” because the dressing room hated Mourinho, not because their players were bad.
Don’t worry Cyprus The Immortal Gooner.
Voice of reason has gone out the window lately. Haven’t you heard?
It’s a shame even the normally rational ones have also lost their sense reason.
It’s been even more disheartening and shocking to see bloggers (normally rational ones) encourage this sentiment against the manager by giving unfair verdicts on his style of play and vision regardless of the fact he’s only had this season to properly assess the squad and players at his disposal.
Last 5-6 games were devastating emotionally. But it shouldn’t come to define us as a club and as supporters. Neither should it define the manager’s vision.
Give him a summer to move on players that don’t fit his vision and replace them with those that do.
“Jumping on a coach that has been at the club for 9 months, coaching a team that he did not build and with all the limitations & injuries he had to endure, is IMHO very unfair to Emery.” It’s a shame even well-respected bloggers and commenters have jumped on the bandwagon without much patience and have encouraged it. “We should give Emery a season to properly assess and build even if he does not get into the UCL this season,” they said. 9 months in and he’s still with a chance of getting us UCL qualification… the feedback is so… Read more »
Fans are so fickle. No calls today for our manager to get the boot after reaching a European final in his first 9 months at the club.
The man has taken over a shit show of a team and at the start of the season nobody expected us to make top 4. He has had very little backing from the board on transfers, but those who he has brought in have made a positive impact.
Liverpool and Sp*rs making the CL Final isn’t his fault.
Give the guy some time and support. Let’s not become a Chelsea fanbase.
One practically guarantee that the guy who came up with that diatribe has never competed in a sport at any level. It’s the type of crap Piers Morgan would come out with.
I think regardless of the fact that we all spoke with the voice of reason at the start of this campaign, there was still innate distrust of this coach among the arsenal fandom. So it quickly showed itself at the first sight of trouble. Considering the sentiment among fans and bloggers early part of the season, it appeared we were truly ready to brave through this season together with this manager and the process regardless of the storms we knew were certain to encounter along the way. But I guess it doesn’t work that way in football after all. If… Read more »
“Give the guy some time and support”.
That’s almost impossible to do when there is an innate distrust of the coach, his vision, his methods and his capabilities across the fanbase. But it is hard to explain.
“Let’s not become a Chelsea fanbase”
How about we go on a manager merry-go-round ala Manchester
United style. I think that will give the fans some joy.
I think Arsenal fans have been incredibly positive this season, and the departures of AW and Gazidis have largely cleared the air. A new coach always brings hopeful excitement, and the fact that we were winning games while not playing all that convincingly was a good sign (as opposed to our former habit of player well but still finding a way to lose). But it was also a worrying sign, as we know in competitive sports that our luck would run out, which it did at the absolute worst time of the season. We can criticize Emery for making mistakes… Read more »
This is what some pillock called Burney on the irrelevant Arsenal world interactive message board made of it:
So how do we reconcile a side that can play like that against a no mark Spanish team
in the European version of the Zenith Data Systems Cup with the worthless, unprofessional shambles who didn’t turn up to secure CL football (the only point of winning this shïtshow) via the league against lowly opposition?
Clearly this c**t of a manager can’t motivate players to do their f*cking day jobs. Gobshíte. I hope he dies.
What a pillock.
Remember when we had that season where we were humiliated by the big sides 6-0, 6-3, 5-1, 3-0. We had the fa cup final against Hull end of the season we won then we completely forgot about all our failures that campaign. We signed Sanchez that summer and turned over a new leaf.
We have a bigger rebuilding job now obviously, if we win EL and spend summer replacing players leaving and buying defenders we’ll improve and quite possibly take next season by storm.
Emery ain’t bad but he needs financial backing. If the rumours were true then a 40-70 mil budget can’t transfrom us into a league title challenger like the old time yet.
Ramsey, Mkhitaryan, Ozil, Mustafi, Cech, Welbeck are all leaving with different reasons.
Koscielny, Monreal are too old. Thanks for everything they have contributed but it’s time to say goodbye.
It’s a big summer with a lot of changing. Clearly, our squad needs a surgery, one or two signing won’t help much.
That’s partly correct because, if rumours are true on the budget 40-70 mil, then a good manager should not moan at all. Okay, he can buy two good players, kick some others from the club, take 4-5 youngsters and throw them in the flames. That’s what a smart and good manager can do. You don’t give me a budget, okay, then I go this way. If not, there is always the possibility to step down himself. I mean, it’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world, there are (as I mentioned) other solutions and it is better… Read more »
Mhki, Ozil & Mustafi are all leaving, you know something we don’t?
I think only 1 of mhki & Ozil will leave. Personally I would prefer the spoilt brat Ozil as Mhki could play the 10 role & link up well with Auba as the 4th goal last night showed.
The fact that Ozil got involved in that melee last night & his finger to lips motion whilst being subbed shows his “toys out of the pram” attitude that is not needed at our club.
Oh shut up you little weasel. You know what you sound like with your constant petty diatribes against Òzil? A spoilt little brat.
Stop projecting for once
I’ve also been om the new big player train, but last weeks have shown what determined teams can do even though they loaded to the roof with top class players. With Bellerin and Holding back from injury it’s like two new signings and we need to look into Chambers/ Reiss-Nelson situation. If the transfer budget is so limited as it seems a new left back and a new midfielder with leadership quality is top of my list
LOL all the kind words…lose the Europa finals and the knives will be out again…just watch.
Fickle.