Arsenal sacked Emery for poor results not lack of English – Guardiola

The Manchester City boss has stressed results and not a lack of communication saw the Gunners boss lose his job

Unai Emery was sacked by Arsenal because of poor results, not because he couldn’t get his message across to the players, according to Pep Guardiola.

The Manchester City boss takes his side to the Emirates on Sunday with Freddie Ljungberg now in charge after the Gunners’ poor start to the season.

Emery failed to win any on his final seven games in charge and was eight points outside the Champions League places when he left.

The Spaniard was criticised by some for his lack of English but Guardiola said it cannot be used as an excuse for a failure on the pitch.

“If he was able to win more games, the communication is perfect,” Guardiola said.

“Today there are a lot of weapons to communicate to the players, through the images, through not just the words. I do not completely agree with this.

“We make analysis after the results, after what happens, it is the same guy.

“It is not easy sometimes when you want to be your own language. But there are the hands, the body, the emotions, the images, your assistants, many things but the reason not was I think the capacity of Unai, there is no doubts about that, it happened because he didn’t win games.”

Emery’s Arsenal were beaten home and away by City last season as Guardiola’s side went on to land a second Premier League title.

But this season’s visit to London, comes as Liverpool opened up an incredible 17-point lead on City following their 2-0 victory over Watford on Saturday .

Guardiola insisted he is not thinking about catching the runaway leaders and is more concerned about catching Leicester.

“There is not one thought on my mind about Liverpool. I should think about Leicester,” Guardiola said. “It is far away to think about them. To take Liverpool we first have to think about Leicester, then we will see.

“In the last years we were incredibly consistent home and away but this season we have dropped points.

“It is not about the performance. I would be really really concerned if our game was not there.”

Liverpool are not in Premier League action again until after Christmas with Jurgen Klopp’s side heading to Qatar for the Club World Cup.

While some might hope it could have a draining effect on Liverpool’s players in a demanding season where they remain in five competitions, Guardiola says there gap means they are able to relax.

“I don’t think [it will],” he added. “I played in two such competitions. When you play in them as the best teams in the world you have an advantage for these amount of points, especially for ourselves being a little bit shorter than Liverpool. But you never know.”