Mikel Arteta has been confirmed as Arsenal's new manager - and he will have plenty of work to turn things around.
But the Spaniard at least appears to have an idea of where their weaknesses lie.
Arteta has spent the last three and a half years as assistant coach of Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, where he said goodbye to staff and players before travelling to north London on Thursday.
He has masterminded a run of six straight wins over Arsenal in that time, with footage on last year's Amazon Prime series All or Nothing: Manchester City highlighting his integral role.
Footage on the series shows Guardiola out for a meal with staff and their families ahead of the 2018 Carabao Cup final, in which City would thrash Arsenal 3-0.
Guardiola tells Arteta after reaching the final: "From now on, you’re going to be studying Arsenal. I want you to write me a report on their attack and defence."
Arteta then laughed as another fan joked "and their state of mind!" before Guardiola urged him to "‘Tell Rodo [Rodolfo Borrell] about the defence."
After discussing how he knows how Arsene Wenger, manager at the time, "thinks, how he prepares stuff", the documentary showed Guardiola relaying the gameplan devised by Arteta.
And he picked out the space behind Arsenal's full-backs as the key area to exploit, as Pep Guardiola used the tactics board to explain to players: "Dani [Danilo] and Alex [Zinchenko] has to attack that guy [points to full-back] like a winger, for the other side to move outside.
"Always the same concept, the third man sends the ball wide… into the net. We find here [in the hole], the third man sends the ball in the right moment."
They put those instructions into practice in training, with Leroy Sane running to the byline and pulling the ball back for midfielders to finish.
There was a carbon copy of that plan in Emery's first game in charge of Arsenal as Benjamin Mendy set up Bernardo Silva a few months later.
Arteta will inherit the same full-backs the exploited when he becomes Arsenal manager, with Hector Bellerin and Sead Kolasinac still the first choice pairing.
Their inability to upgrade could be a worrying sign for Arteta, but Gunners fans will hope his recognition of the problem when at City can enable him to come up with a quick-fix to deal with their defensive frailities.
