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At first glance things don't look too bad for the Gunners. They are currently sixth in the English Premier League and all but assured of a place in the last 32 of the Europa League. However, if you delve a little deeper things are far from rosy for manager Unai Emery.
Arsenal go into the international break winless in their last five games and with just one victory in their last seven, with even that only coming via a stoppage-time goal at home to Vitoria Guimaraes.
The 2-0 defeat at Leicester City on Saturday already leaves Arsenal eight points shy of the top four. The only comfort they can take from the season to date in the Premier League is that, despite their only indifferent form, they still find themselves above Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
Low Morale
In addition, there is a growing restlessness among the Gunners' faithful and, more worryingly, talk of dissent in the ranks among the players.
The international break is often a point at which clubs opt to part company with an underperforming manager, but the board are apparently "100%" behind Emery and it would seem likely that the Arsenal hierarchy will remain loyal to the Spaniard for at least another couple of weeks.
Sack Race
Southampton's Ralph Hasenhuttl is the current market leader in the "Next Manager To Leave Post" betting odds at 9/4 with the BetVictor online bookmakers, but Emery's odds to vacate his position at the Emirates Stadium have plummeted in recent weeks, to the point where he is now clear second favourite at best odds of just 7/2 at Betfair.
There are plenty of ways to collect a free bet to have a punt on the "Next Manager To Leave Post" and also many other markets you can think of over at the freebets.co.uk website.
For his part, Emery said after the Leicester game that: "We had our moments, but so did Leicester and they scored from theirs. We need some more passion in our game, we need to restore some confidence."
He then went on to add, predictably enough: "It is true that Leicester and Chelsea are pulling away from us, we are still above Manchester United and Tottenham in the table."
Wenger In?
The Gunners' first game on the resumption of club football is at home to Southampton on Saturday, November 23. Whatever the result of that match, it's difficult to believe that it will increase the job stability of at least one of the managers on duty that day.
Ironically, all this comes at a time when Emery's predecessor, one Arsene Wenger, is being widely touted for the vacant manager's position at Bayern Munich (he's 6/1 with Betfair for the job at the time of writing).
Football is, as someone once said, a funny old game.
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