Jens Lehmann has questioned whether Arsenal's football hierarchy had the requisite footballing knowledge when they chose to appoint Unai Emery in the summer of 2018.
Emery was appointed by the triumvirate of Ivan Gazidis, Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi after a lengthy interview process, the Spaniard beating front runner Mikel Arteta and former captain Patrick Vieira to be named Arsene Wenger's successor. Of the trio that appointed the Spaniard only Sanllehi is still at the club.
Emery's tenure in north London swiftly unravelled as his side blew an advantageous position in the top four race late in his first season with defeat to Chelsea in the Europa League final causing them to miss out on the Champions League. Despite heavy spending last summer the head coach's struggles continued and when he was sacked the Gunners were eight points off the top four.
The 48-year-old's arrival also saw Lehmann depart following a single season as a first-team coach under Wenger with Emery opting to bring in coaching staff who, Lehmann insists, could not speak English.
“I was there as an assistant coach two years ago but then Arsene has left and they have changed the whole managerial team and I think they made a mistake by choosing the wrong guys," Lehmann told Stadium Astro.
“The people at the top sometimes don't know what I know about football and they didn’t experience how to win things. So it’s not easy for them.
“I think he wanted to bring his own staff who couldn’t even speak English. Then a guy like me, who was a player for them, I think he just didn’t want us.
“I think it was a big present to him that he was picked as a manager for Arsenal because I think he was not good, not good enough because he had this lingual problem.
“He may have some good ideas in Spanish but he never came across as being transferrable to English football.”
Lehmann's sole season on the Arsenal coaching staff proved to be a challenging one for the Gunners, with off-field concerns over the contracts of Wenger, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil having a damaging effect on performances on the pitch as they finished sixth, their worst Premier League performance since 1995.
In his final years Wenger's sides were compared unfavourably to the Invincibles of 2003/04, where with Lehmann in goal Arsenal went without defeat throughout their title-winning campaign.
Reflecting on his third spell in north London - Lehmann also briefly returned to provide cover during an injury crisis in 2011 - the 50-year-old said: "I saw a couple of different personalities and, when I look back at successful teams that I played in, more and more it comes to my mind that the personality of key players, key executives and key managers is so important and makes such a difference.
"They need to know how to win. Winning trophies at the end of the season or game after game after game is very difficult.
"Most of the time it's connected with pain. If you prepare for a win there's always some pain involved. If you prepare for defeat there is no pain.
"The personality of the coach or manager is very important. There are only very, very few who are really good at it. Most of them don't have it."
