It was just over a year ago, as Fulham were being dismantled on their own turf by five goals to one, that a song went up from the travelling fans: “We’ve got our Arsenal back”.



How premature that turned out to be. Thirteen months on, those fans will feel they’ve got their Arsenal back again, wresting control of it from a coach who was threatening to run their season into the ground before the halfway point.



His oddities, such as refusing to discuss the Europa League final plans properly until the end of the league season, or allowing the club’s travel co-ordinator to deliver a cringeworthy team talk before a vital game, eventually grew too much. As he flitted between philosophies, he ultimately angered his leading players so much that by this week they had given up on him, as had an exasperated hierarchy, who discussed his future in the US and then concluded before Thursday’s game that he was to be sacked.



When Emery was...