Underdog Mentality

Emery's underdog mentality is something that has been mentioned in various media sources a few times but rarely explored in depth and is in my opinion one of the major things holding him back as a manager and therefore us as a team and club.

I think it goes without saying that most managers are very stubborn, for the most part they need to be to succeed but even the stubbornest of people need to recognise when it's time to adapt, to change, to grow. Remaining stubborn to the point of your own demise and the demise of hugely important and valuable assets (both emotionally to millions of fans and financially to your boss) - when the problems are so clear to see cannot be said to be anything other than stupidity.

However, why this stupidity you may wonder? Why this continuous stupidity and refusal to change what seems glaringly obvious to most of us who understand football? The reason for this is in fact less stubbornness, more inability to change. Less believing that the way you are doing things is what's actually best for the players and the team, more lack of self belief or fear that trying to do something outside of your comfort zone will backfire and embarrass you.

Emery's entire management style is about self-preservation of pride and doing everything not to lose games, it is also the definition of small club mentality and underdog tactics, starting with a back 5 at home to Southampton was just yet another example of this. This clearly stems from his roots managing:
Lorca Deportiva (2004–2006)
Almería (2006–2008)
Valencia (2008–2012)
Spartak Moscow (2012)
Sevilla (2013–2016)

Granted Valencia, Sevilla & Spartak Moscow are not exactly 'small clubs' but they are all underdogs in terms of challenging for and winning trophies in their respective leagues and Europe. Following these teams, Emery failed to develop new ideas and tactics in 2 years for the first big club he managed: Paris Saint-Germain and rightly got sacked. He's now had another year and a half with us, so in 3 and a half years of managing big clubs (and you could argue Valencia are still a relatively big club and add those years too) Emery has failed to adapt himself, to change or to grow into the manager required by a big team. He's 48 years old now so not exactly a young manager anymore, whilst by no means being close to the oldest around his refusal to change strikes me as more of an inability to change than just being stubborn.

If you look at Emery's playing career the picture becomes even clearer:
Real Sociedad B (1990–1995)
Real Sociedad (1995–1996)
Toledo (1996–2000)
Racing Ferrol (2000–2002)
Leganés (2002–2003)
Lorca Deportiva CF (2003–2004)

He never played for anything close to a big club. His entire footballing career as a player has revolved around experiences with small clubs, it's all he knows. Worst of all, looking at those names it took him 5 years to break into the first team for Real Sociedad, he left at the end of that season then regressed to inferior clubs for the following 8 years.

What we needed was a manager who would play to our strengths and the strongest area of our squad; our attack. Emery was a horrendously bad appointment all things considered, totally unsuited to managing a club whose fans demand good attacking football. To my knowledge and recollection Gazidis was the key decision maker who opted for Emery so thanks a lot Ivan, just another bit of 'work' you got paid for that has left us worse off than before you utter useless moron who has no place in football.

This article was pretty on point, as much as we do need Emery to get sacked the only blame from here on out lies with Raul, Vinai and maybe a little bit Edu. Every point we drop until we have a new manager is on them: https://arseblog.com/2019/11/arsenal-2-2-southampton-another-dismal-day-but-the-blame-lies-higher-up-than-unai-emery/

There is also some interesting content about Emery's management style that ties in nicely with what I've written in this article. Particularly the parts about how he instills fear aka 'underdog mentality' into the players before games, no wonder they have no confidence.