Unai Emery was given the hardest possible start to his career as Arsenal boss with a home game against the Champions followed by an away game at one of our biggest rivals Chelsea. We were all hoping that Arsenal could get something from these two games, but the fact that Man City beat us 9-1 over 3 meetings last season, and we haven’t beaten Chelsea at Stamford Bridge since 2011, it was a bit of a leap to believe that Emery could turn things around so much in just a couple of months of pre-season with half the team missing….
So we lost (as expected) to Man City, and now we have the next daunting task coming up, but Hector Bellerin is still in a positive mood. “There’s still loads of games but you cannot be missing out on points.” The Spaniard said. “Every single point is important and going away to Chelsea is always hard. They showed yesterday that they’re a team that play very good football under Sarri, and we’re up for the challenge. We played them in pre-season so we know more or less how they play, so now we have a whole week to prepare and get ready for it.”
But Arsenal fans do need to be realistic and not expect massive improvement overnight, but if we lose to Chelsea as well it won’t be the end of the world. bellerin was also asked if Emery’s reign will be more succesful that the last few dismal years of Wenger. “Definitely.” he replied. “I think after 22 years under Arsene Wenger there are many things that are changing so it’s important for everyone to get used to all the players. Everyone should be very excited because it’s a new era for us and it’s about learning with the new coach, learning the new system and I’m sure we’ll get better. If you compare it to Guardiola’s first year it was a very hard year for him – and look where they are now! So we need to look at it that way. It’s a positive change and we’re excited.”
We are all excited too, and we shouldn’t be too despondent either if we start the season with two defeats. There is only one way to go after that.
Onwards and Upwards!
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