Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan claims Unai Emery “folded like a cheap deck chair” during his time at Arsenal.
The Spaniard is back in the Premier League after Aston Villa hired him as their replacement for outgoing manager Steven Gerrard, who was sacked last week after losing 3-0 to newly-promoted Fulham.
Villa beat Brentford 4-0 over the weekend in their first match without Gerrard at the helm with caretaker manager Aaron Danks taking the reins.
Emery last 17 months at Arsenal in his last Premier League job with the 50-year-old the first manager to follow on from legendary manager Arsene Wenger.
His first campaign went ok with the Gunners finishing fifth, one place higher than the previous season – but, after a seven-match winless run in the November of the following campaign, Emery was given the boot.
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And Jordan has described Emery as “flaky” during his time at Arsenal with the Spaniard losing “the three component parts of a manager’s success”.
Jordan told talkSPORT: “He folded like a cheap deck chair last time he was in the Premier League, so we’re yet to see whether that experience has changed him.
“I think he was flaky at the end. I think he lost control of the dressing room, he control of the mentality of the club and he lost control of his representation in the media.
“Those are the three component parts of a manager’s success: Managing the players, making sure that the fans are onside and handling the media. He lost all three.
“You go away, you rebuild, you recalibrate and you come back a different animal.
“They won’t do to him this time around what they did to him last time but, not withstanding that, the Premier League is an animal that will eat you if you’re not at it, on it and across it.”
Jordan added: “He’s achieved incredible success with Villarreal. Everyone remembers a club the size of Villarreal, from a town of 50,000, getting to the Champions League semi-final and losing ultimately against Liverpool, that was a huge achievement.
“In the year before that winning Villarreal’s first ever trophy in the Europa League and obviously beating Manchester United in the process.
“He went to Villarreal, he fit in perfectly and it went brilliantly, with the one little caveat being that they finished seventh both times, meaning that it wasn’t brilliantly domestically, but in cup competitions he’s massively rebuilt his reputation.
“I think that he was harshly viewed after his time in north London because it didn’t go that badly with Arsenal – they did get to a Europa League final and finish fifth under Emery so it wasn’t terrible, but people don’t like to remember the good things.
“He did really well with Villarreal and let’s see how he does with Aston Villa.”
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