Baltimore / November 30, 2019
 
Yesterday, Arsenal sacked Unai Emery and appointed Freddie Ljungberg as the interim manager. Everyone who follows the club felt that Emery's time was up.
 
Emery will recover. He is a workaholic who everyone respects. Luck plays a significant role in football. If a couple of matches this season had turned out differently and if Nicolas Pepe had adapted to the English Premier League faster, Emery would still be the manager.
 
It is exciting to see Ljungberg as the new manager. He was one of Arsenal's best players and a significant contributor to the team's style during the Wenger era. He will command respect from the players because he was a top tier player in his own right. Under Emery, you got the feeling that the players did not understand his instructions. Many journalists criticized Emery for changing formations and strategies from week to week. In fact, it is necessary at the highest levels of football to change strategies frequently. Every top tier manager changes the strategy before each match. You must look for small openings and opportunities if you want to win at that level. Ljungberg should change the strategies frequently. The players might respond better to Ljungberg simply because he has been in their position.
 
Ljungberg is a great choice for interim manager, but he's not a long-term solution. He is too inexperienced. Ljungberg has a great pedigree and potential to develop into a first-rate manager. But Arsenal has serious structural issues. The club needs a more experienced manager to steer the team through the season. The supporters want a top 4 finish. If we're completely honest, it would be a stretch for the current roster to finish in the top 4. There is also a significant learning curve for any manager in the English Premier League. Arsenal should try to minimize the uncertainty by installing a manager who has already been through those situations. I want the club to make every effort to hire Mauricio Pochettino. He overperformed at Tottenham. He's also very familiar with the nuances of the Premier League. Ideally, Ljungberg will manage Arsenal for a couple of games and Pochettino will take over for the rest of the season.