Unai Emery’s former partner Sacha Wright says the ex-Arsenal head coach blamed her for his sacking at Arsenal, with the Spaniard calling her a “white witch”.
The 48-year-old lasted less than 18 months at the Emirates before being sacked as manager in November 2019.
Early signs of promise after being appointed to take over from Arsene Wenger quickly fizzled out, with Arsenal finding themselves going backwards before a change was made eventually.
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Emery chose to break up with Wright a couple of months before his exit and, after getting back together in December, sought to pass the buck when it came to his failings at the club.
Wright told The Sun on rekindling her romance with the former Arsenal boss: “It was then that he blamed me for getting him the sack. He told me I was a white witch as I had brought him so much bad luck. He said, ‘It was the day we broke up that we started to lose’.
“He told me he was so stressed out that his mind wasn’t in the right place after we separated.”
Having previously enjoyed good success at Sevilla and Paris Saint-Germain, much was expected of the Spaniard when he arrived at the club.
Wright added: “We met in the summer of 2018 and we started chatting but I do not follow football so I had no idea who he was. He told me he worked in the sports industry and his English was bad as he’d just moved to London.
“He asked me out but said he didn’t want to meet anywhere too busy. He asked me to go to his house in Barnet but I told him no, absolutely not. We agreed to meet at an Italian restaurant in Hampstead. When we arrived, I realised he must be someone important as even though the restaurant was about to close, they kept it open.
“He had a heavy accent. He would regularly stop the conversation so he could check words on Google Translate on his phone, but I found him attractive from the moment we met.
“He dressed well and seemed like a really nice guy. He joked that I could be his English teacher.”
