On today’s Episode of ‘Managerial Merry-go-round’ Unai finds out that he may be ‘Emery of the Emirates’…stay tuned for more…

Yep, here we are again folks and having just started to accept that the club are leaving its immediate footballing evolution to a man who has managed as many Premier League games as you, I or the current Pope, we are thrown a curveball with the news that Arsenal may or may not be taking a late look at Unai Emery formerly of the Paris parish.

Firstly, I suspect this is standard click-batey rubbish from the journos to eek out a bit more interest in a story that has been going in one direction for a couple of weeks now. I think once all is clear and we know who our new manager is – probably Arteta – that it will become obvious that he was the main choice for some time.

But this being Arsenal, it doesn’t really surprise me at all that our approach to planning for life under Wenger feels a little ‘ohh yeah’ in terms of being organised fastidious and efficient in our new manager search.

“Hey Ivan, you know that Unai Emery is free because Tuchel has replaced him at PSG?”

“Oh yeah. Let’s call him then…”

This manager search has either been one of two situations:

  1. A risky and some might say reckless decision to appoint a completely untrusted man as the next Arsenal manager, despite what anybody says
  2. A lurching from one candidate to the next because we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing as a club

Either way, it does feel a little scary that the people charged with steering this club into the new era, seem to be about as confident and composed as a teenage boy fumbling in the dark to undo a girls bra strap.

Perhaps I’m being harsh. Perhaps you find me unkind. Perhaps #TeamIvan know exactly what they want, exactly what type of manager and style of club we’ll be, and they’re just going through the final stages. But as always from the outside looking in it all feels a bit of a fudge.

Of course this could just be Emery’s agent briefing to the British press because he wants his client to come across to the wider footballing fraternity as a coach who is very much in demand. Sounding out interest from The Arsenal could be a way to chivvy along another club to appoint him quickly.

I actually don’t think it’d be a bad Arsenal appointment though. Of course Paris Saint Germain are hardly the right type of team to be judged on how a manager performs, as Emery would have pretty much been able to say “there’s the pitch, beat the inferior team we’re playing this week please, lads”, but from his time at Sevilla he looks like he was a bit of a tactically fluid coach willing to change structure based on opposition but also somebody who would happily adopt a structured higher press.

See that’s the thing with a man who has already managed – you can start to look at his career and work out what he could bring to Arsenal – and on the Little I’ve read about him so far that doesn’t look that bad to me. If we had a man who could get us pressing better as a unit and forcing teams to lose the ball higher up the pitch then great, or a man that will shift things around when we play the better teams then happy days, because that’s what we’ve been crying out for years.

Of course I suspect all of this hypothesising is largely redundant because I think the Arteta deal is done. I have no sources, I can’t get any kind of access to Ivan, Sven or Raul, but sometimes you just have to observe all the noise to realise when something seems pretty much done and dusted.

And I think our manager search is very much ‘dusted’.

So we wait for news. Then when it comes we can start the real speculation on how we’re going to play next season.

Laters people.

Ooh, quick P.S. for you – I’m making my radio debut tonight along with Dave and Giles on LoveSport Radio. It’s an Arsenal fans show and I think we’ll be taking calls, talking to Gooners and generally chewing the fat on a few things. It’s on between 9-10 tonight as a pilot and all being well it’ll be a regular thing so if you’re free and fancy a little Arsenal listen, then tune in.