It's time to live up to my bio as an Unai Emery apologist [A THREAD]:

Emery came to Arsenal known as the Europa League maestro, got subpar signings, and got the team to 5th, 1 POINT OFF 4TH!

On top of this he got that team with deadwood like mustafi, kolasinac etc. to the EL final and got shown that the team was dead against Chelsea

So you'd take from this that he was punching above his weight with a cl(ass) team and that he was fine margins away from achieving his goal

On comes the next season and he's expected to do this again but go a step further when the majority of his rivals got better (bar Chelsea) and his team did not level up in recruitment the way he wanted to

With signing the likes of Luiz (Brazilian Mustafi), Saliba (young and inexperienced), Ceballos (fringe Madrid player), Tierney (INJURED UPON ARRIVAL), Martinelli (young, 0 experience of top flight european football)

And last but not least, the Ivorian he didn't want, Nicolas Pepe.

Zaha said EMERY wanted HIM SPECIFICALLY, club decided not to back the manager that got them so close to success, and instead went to go buy a player that Emery didn't like within the small space of time he had to coach him, FOR 8 MILLION LESS!

Bearing in mind Zaha is a PROVEN PL PLAYER, TRAINED AND BROUGHT UP IN ENGLISH FOOTBALL, KNOWS IT BACK TO FRONT, but the board decided to go for an UBEREATS LEAGUE, PENALTY STATPADDER.

Back to the main point, Arsenal did not back Emery, and I believe that this situation is similar to Conte's at Chelsea, where he wasn't backed, so he knew he was leaving but whilst doing so costing the squad, playing shit 11s to show the board how shit the recruitment was...

... not bothering with tactics etc. (That performance vs City still scars me as a Chelsea fan)
So, Emery wasn't backed and decided to take a similar route with outlandish 11s, playing torreira at attacking midfield etc. thus leading to himself getting sacked; left getting paid.

And this brings us to modern day where Emery is performing with Villareal exceptionally, and with them in the semis of the EL winning in the 1st leg against non other than his previous employers, Arsenal FC.

So Emery picked up where he left off in the 2018/19 season and is still the class manager he has always been, moral of the story, Emery is underrated and IS CLASS. And Arsenal are paying the costs of their mistakes! End. Of. Thread.