Players have lost confidence in Unai Emery believes former Arsenal midfielder Perry Groves.
It seems that a day does not pass without a former Arsenal player having a go at Unai Emery, the board or even the players. For a fee of course.
This time it is Perry Groves slamming Unai Emery and to be honest, most of what he had to say has been said many times before.
But what strikes me about Groves is that he does not actually offer up any solutions. All he offers is non stop criticism.
It is so easy to pick apart a team when it is not doing so well and former Gunners are experts at that. But other than “sack the manager”, “employ this man” what do they actually propose?
Anyway, this is what Groves said to TalkSport.
“I think, when he first went in there, there was an intensity because it was too comfortable under Arsene Wenger and he made his stance [clear].
“The closing down was a lot more intense – covering more ground.
“He went 22 games unbeaten over a little period and in the game against Spurs they went 2-1 down and came back. There was a real buzz about the Emirates.
“And what has happened is he’s got rid of the players he didn’t want, like the Monreals, the Petr Cechs, and Aaron Ramseys but then the players that have been brought in, whether it’s by him or the sporting director, they have actually got steadily worse.
“That intensity has got less and less and less with a team that he is supposed to be constructing.
“The thing from watching from the outside is there doesn’t seem to be a desire to do the horrible stuff.”
Groves continued: “The thing with the Arsenal situation with Unai Emery is, if you watch them against Leicester, and I’ve been watching Arsenal a lot this year, there is no structure. There doesn’t seem to be any philosophy.
“Unai Emery doesn’t seem to know his best formation, he doesn’t seem to know what players to play in that formation and I think the players have lost confidence in him. I don’t think the players are getting him at the minute.”
So, in conclusion, this is what we have, Emery is useless, the players going backwards, there is no identity and Groves get paid.
I know, I am being a little petty here, I mean, blogs like this, other sites also get paid but at least we offer up some solutions, some opinions on how to steady the ship and so on. In fact, every now and then we go positive.
One final thing, Groves offers zero evidence that the players have lost confidence in Emery. He uses the word “think”. So at the end of the day, he knows no more than me or you.