David Luiz refused to say anything negative about Unai Emery despite the Spaniard leading Arsenal on a downward spiral that has only just seen us achieve a positive goal difference in February, three months after he left.

“I think Unai is a great coach, a great person,” Luiz said before Arsenal’s game against Olympiacos on Thursday night. “The things didn’t work out very well, especially the results and it’s normal to try to find some answers.

“I don’t judge anybody. I still have a lot of admiration for him and I think it’s not intelligent from my point of view if I say something. He was a great, great guy, great coach.

“He has his vision and we have to accept that in a nice way and in a humble way.”

Since his sacking at the end of last year, Emery has been spouting all sorts of nonsense that blames everybody but himself for the mess Mikel Arteta is now trying to dig us out of.

Unsurprisingly, Arsene Wenger was having none of it.

“In 2017 we made 75 points and won the FA Cup so you cannot say that [Arsenal were in decline] and the year before [2016] we finished second in the league,” Wenger said at the Laureus World Sports Awards where he was handing out an award to Lewis Hamilton after winning the Lifetime Achievement award last year himself.

“2018 was my last year but it is very difficult to come out on that,” Wenger told reporters at the event.

“Arsenal is a club that is in a very strong position financially. It has good players, after that when you are a manager you have to stand up for what you do and your result and not look around you.

“That is the only thing you can do.”

Despite how things ended at Arsenal for him, it’s hard to disagree with what Wenger is saying. The problem was we were stale and it was like groundhog day by 2018. We wanted and needed something different.

Unai Emery certainly gave us that…