Ornsteins piece from the Athletic was interesting. Going into the summer Maguire, Zaha, and Partey were his preferred targets. Would have been possible with UCL money.
Ornstein then listed out the sideshow stuff that Emery had to deal with - definitely unsettling stuff:
Numerous sources point out that irrespective of Emery’s faults, the enormous amount of change and issues he faced during an 18-month reign did not create an ideal environment to succeed. It featured KSE’s full takeover, CEO Ivan Gazidis moving on, Raul Sanllehi and Vinai Venkatesham assuming duel leadership, Sven Mislintat’s exit as recruitment chief, the Aaron Ramsey contract situation, major injuries to Bellerin and Rob Holding, Monchi’s u-turn, Darren Burgess being sacked as high performance director, Freddie Ljungberg replacing Steve Bould on the coaching staff, the Koscielny fall-out, losing Petr Cech and Nacho Monreal, Edu’s installation and Ozil and Sead Kolasinac suffering an attempted car-jacking.
We still made the right call, but you can’t say the guy had an easy time, or didn’t have the right ideas on recruitment.