Charlie Nicholas believes the outburst of Granit Xhaka was the start of Unai Emery’s demise at Arsenal.
Emery was sacked by the Gunners on Friday morning with Freddie Ljungberg appointed interim head coach while the club assess their options moving forward.
The Spaniard’s sacking comes following Arsenal's worst run of form since 1992 with the Gunners winless in seven games and eight points off the top four in the Premier League.
But despite the Gunners’ poor run of form, Nicholas believes some of the issues at the club aren’t the Spaniard’s doing and that the club are lacking leadership at the very top.
“Not surprised after seeing the nonsense again last night,” Nicholas told Sky Sports News in the immediate aftermath to Emery’s sacking.
“With Xhaka coming back into the team I think he lost his direction and his beliefs. And I think you could see in the players that they had lost belief as well.
“It is just all a mess. It is not all his fault, I think there has been a lack of leadership above him and it has been a real shock to the system for this Arsenal club. But Arsenal now need to stand up.
“The results were poor. There was no style and this losing mentality was becoming a bad habit. I sympathise a bit with Unai Emery, but he’d lost his way and the direction we was going in was all wrong."
The Scot then added: “It was the captaincy. He said when he come in...and I did a sit down interview with him about 15 months ago for Soccer Saturday, very pleasing man to speak to. When he played Liverpool in a final with Seville, I want high energy football, pace in the team.
“He’s spent £72million on Pepe when we don’t need him. Lacazette and Aubameyang are stars for us. Ozil has been a star for us but he’s just not fixed it and because of that he had to go.
“There are big names out there who Arsenal can go and identify, but Arsenal has got a lot of rebuilding to do, a lot of rebuilding to do.
“New defence and that will take money. But Arsenal don’t have a lot of money at the moment.”
