WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Arsenal’s powers-that-be who are, apparently, Ivan Gazidis, Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi and not, as we thought, Arséne Wenger, have decided that Unai Emery is the man to succeed the one we naturally assumed was God at the club.

Unai, (no relation to Dick as far as we are aware), brings with him a wealth of experience in winning the Europa league, having done so three times with Sevilla, so Arsenal could really have done with him last season

Apparently he likes to do things in threes as he finished third in La Liga on three occasions when with Valencia behind guess which other two? Yes, you’re probably right.

He also won three trophies in his first season at PSG. So can Arsenal look forward to winning things with him in charge?

Well, he obviously prefers the Europa League to the Champion’s League and doesn’t seem to have quite fathomed out how to play in Europe’s top competition. A little bit like Arséne there then! But at least, with him in charge, Arsenal can reasonably expect to win the Europa League which will get them back into the Champion’s League.

In fairness, so will finishing third in the league, another feat at which Emery seems to be quite adept, unless it’s with Sevilla, who he never actually managed to get in the final top three.

He was a trifle unfortunate to be sacked by PSG but, then again, so is every manager sacked by PSG! His only crime was to get knocked out of the Champion’s League by Real Madrid, a result experienced by many other good teams!

The thing is that Arsenal will improve under the Spaniard. Having said that, Arsenal would probably improve under almost anybody at present but the appointment of Emery shows that thoughts have turned from Mikel Arteta, who was probably too young for this to be his first job as a coach, to the relatively experienced ex-PSG man.

Will he be a good appointment? We will have to wait and see but the signs are positive.

Over in the East End…..

Meanwhile, in an area of London which rarely gets a mention on these pages, Manuel Pellegrini was busy taking over at West Ham United. Unlike Emery, he has insisted on being in charge of everything football related and that, to us old-fashioned types, means transfers in and out as well as contract negotiations with players and other such mundane stuff.

Pellegrini actually boasts a pretty impressive record himself when it comes to achievements. Whilst manager at Real Madrid he was responsible for the club achieving the highest number of points ever in one season, (the total was later surpassed by José Mourinho’s side). How was he rewarded by the club? He was fired because he finished behind Barcelona that year!

He took Málaga from fourth bottom of La Liga when he took over to the quarter finals of the Champion’s League and was cheated of victory there by ridiculous refereeing decisions.

He won the Premier League title with Manchester City before being replaced by Pep Guardiola.

In truth, Pellegrini did nothing wrong at either Real Madrid or Manchester City it was just that both clubs had the opportunity of employing a manager they had coveted for ages in Mourinho and Guardiola respectively so, in that respect, he was very unlucky.

West Ham United are getting a very, very good manager, probably better than they deserve. Let’s hope that they can appreciate it and get behind him.

And finally…..

It’s George Best’s birthday! He would have been 72 today but, unfortunately, he isn’t around anymore and some of the rubbish we have to suffer on the pitch nowadays must have him spinning.

He played and scored in all weathers, he scored with his right foot, his left foot and his head. He wore the number 11 shirt, the number 10 shirt, the number 8 shirt and the number 7 shirt, (not at the same time). He makes a lot of today’s “superstars” look like little boys who would never have made it in the world of men’s football back in the sixties and seventies.

Anyway, as our little tribute to the Irish full-time drinker and womaniser, and occasional world’s best footballer, here is a short video of 50 of his goals.

They certainly don’t make ’em like that any more!