Arsenal are finding success is a lot harder to achieve than change

It was all going so well, the promise of a return to the Champions League premised on a run of 22 matches unbeaten and Unai Emery seemingly the epitome of the modern coach easing Arsenal through the post-Arsene Wenger epoch.

It turns out there is nothing new under the sun. When the team is winning there is little compulsion to peep behind the curtains. After a run of three defeats and a draw in their last six Premier League matches, which has seen Arsenal fall six points off fourth spot and surrender an 11-point advantage over Manchester United in sixth, tensions tend to be noticed.

Now paying £350k-a-week to non-playing Mesut Ozil and deciding to let Aaron Ramsey leave for free is seen as a problem, the more so when one of the key backroom modernisers brought in only 14 months ago to help prevent just this kind of upheaval under Emery is said to be looking elsewhere.

Guru

The appointment of recruitment guru Sven Mislintat from Borussia Dortmund was part of the reforming process initiated by former chief executive Ivan Gazidis, whose own departure for AC Milan in September was a harbinger of the impending disruption. Mislintat is, it seems, a victim of the post Gazidis powershare between head of football Raul Sanllehi and managing director Vinai Venkatesham, who have identified the need for a director of a football that isn’t him.

Edu was under consideration for that role, a move that had the support of Emery before reports from Brazil suggested the former Wenger lieutenant had declined it. Life was so much simpler under Wenger, who would not sanction any move for a director of football believing it it be an unnecessary complication in the decision making process. He had a point.

The decision to freeze out Ozil is coming directly from the manager, which is fair enough but not perhaps when others in the hierarchy thought it good practice to make him the club’s highest earner. It was hoped the new Sanllehi/Venkatesham axis, presaged upon Sanllehi’s successful 10 years doing deals at Barcelona, would allow Arsenal to compete at the smart end of the football business, to find a way around the more muscular spending of their rivals at the top of the Premier League.

Investment

Following the the huge re-investment in Ozil plus the likes of Henrikh Mhkitaryan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and the raft of summer signings including Lucas Torreira, Matteo Guendouzi, Bernd Leno, Stephan Lichtsteiner and Sokratis Papastathopoulos, owner Stan Kroenke has imposed a loan stipulation only on the January transfer window, limiting further Emery’s room for manoeuvre.

Next into the Emirates salon are Chelsea, a club more familiar with the reconstruction process since it has become a biennial feature of the Stamford Bridge landscape. Chelsea, a point behind third-placed Spurs, will see Saturday’s fixture as an opportunity to knock Arsenal clean out of the race for fourth. Six days later Arsenal host the rapidly reconstituting United in the fourth round of the FA Cup. Lose either or worse, both, and suddenly Emery is back in the post-Christmas torpor that saw Wenger out the door.

Renewal on a budget was always a myth. As United have spent six seasons demonstrating even vast wealth is of little help if the infrastructure is broken. Like United before them Arsenal are beginning to understand the genius of the bloke who had spent 20 years in charge, even if that longevity necessarily contained within it the seeds of future upheaval.

And so Emery pleads for time the club ultimately cannot afford him. The fans and the board voted not only for change when they ousted Wenger but success. The former is the easy bit, the latter much harder to accomplish. Emery is, of course, cushioned by tolerance and understanding for now. A week hence, who knows?