RMC Sport pundit Rolland Courbis is the latest pundit in the French media to give Thomas Tuchel a positive comparison to previous Paris Saint-Germain boss Unai Emery.

Tuchel is clearly making a good first impression on the French public. This is fairly common with new managers at big clubs, and tends to be followed by the same pundits turning on them when things start to go badly. Nonetheless, Courbis is clearly convinced that Tuchel is a better man for the job than Emery was.

“Thomas Tuchel is not necessarily faultless but I find him really nice,” Courbis said. “And it’s not a question of a new coach. If I put myself in the place of a player and you ask me the question, I prefer to be trained by Tuchel.

“Emery made a lot of mistakes with this workforce. He is a conscientious man professionally but you will not get rid of the idea that the PSG was too high for him. Now we will see him in another context at Arsenal and we will follow it with a lot of sympathy and curiosity.”

To an extent, you can see where he’s coming from. PSG are a club filled with massive personalities on ridiculous wages, and they need a coach who is good at managing players like that. It’s less about the ability to train, or teach, and more about commanding their respect.

Perhaps this is where Emery fell short in Paris, as he gave players like Neymar too much of a say in the running of the team. Arsenal hopefully won’t present the same sorts of problems, but if they do, the Spaniard should be able to learn from and improve upon what went wrong in France.

Despite two defeats, Emery’s Arsenal have already shown some signs of improvement on the last campaign. The fans should judge him on that progress, rather than against their unrealistic expectations, or what the coach did with other clubs. A win against West Ham wouldn’t go amiss though.