Arsenal may have lost Unai Emery’s opening two games as coach, but I personally think that we did see evidence of improvements in some areas, and it is obvious that the old squad and the new players are trying to learn how to play the Emery Way.
But the ex-England striker Alan Shearer thinks that it is going totake a very long time for the new boss to stamp his authority on the players and the club. ‘It is going to be hugely difficult for Unai Emery to get rid of the scent of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal,’ Shearer told The Sun. ‘Wenger’s stamp is all over that football club – in and around the training ground, in and around the Emirates.
‘And it is very difficult for any manager to follow someone who has been at a club for so many years
‘Just look at David Moyes when he followed Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.
‘You cannot expect a guy to be in a club for six weeks and miraculously turn it around and for everything to be rosy again straight away.
‘Arsenal are going to have to suffer for a while and, like it or not, they are going to have to be patient.’
‘It’s small steps. There is no point saying the manager won’t cut it or he won’t be good at this or that.
‘He will probably need 18 months and three transfer windows to get rid of Wenger’s shadow.
‘And you can only really start to judge him after that. Right now, though, it just looks like the same old Arsenal.’
Of course Arsenal still have a lot of players that were nurtured by Wenger, but as Shearer said, there are not going to be great changes overnight, but I believe that the lackadaisical attitude is being stamped out by the new boss. If you don’t follow his instructions and play at the pace he wants you to then you will be replaced by someone who will.
It’s not going to be easy, but I think we are going to see improvements in weeks not years.
What do you think?
Sam P
I believe we are seeing improvements already.The intensity is higher and the players seem to want to fight until the last kick which has not always been the case.Playing out from the back is obviously a completely different way of playing even to a Club that used to pass the ball to send us to sleep at times.But I admire the Managers attitude and he is at least attempting to get the players tuned in to his beliefs.However the season must start on Saturday and there is simply no excuse if we don’t beat West Ham.This is a results driven business and this league is unforgiving to new Managers.The result to me on Saturday is more important than the performance but I hope we get both for the Managers sake
Yes, we have seen some improvements
The way the players played might look like Wenger’s style, but I saw some perfect crosses
Up until three seasons ago even do we was behind we always had the belief that we could come back in the last quarter of the game but last two seasons that belief has gone out from our players and supporters yes we have seen a fight for the last mnt under Emery’s two games but nothing will come of it and soon the players will go back to giving up, i say we take the fight to the opposition bring on the two top strikers in the EPL together Laca and Auba on the pitch and play deep 3-5-2 just so that we don’t expect too much defending from Monrial or Belerin who is playing more like a striker then a right back and i have no faith in him as a defender,
It’s gonna take time for sure. This team is not good enough. You look at our defence and Papa, Mustafi and Bellerin don’t feel you with confidence. In the midfield and apart from Torreira and maybe Guendouzi, the others are average af ( Xhaka, Ramsey, Elneny, Ozil)…You then look at Liverpool yesterday and notice a player like Fabinho did not even make the match day squad because of their options…And here we are, all our hopes on a 19 year old from Lorient, 30 year old Papa who has lost his pace and a headless chicken in Bellerin..Van Dyke yesterday showed us all what you get when you spend high: QUALITY!!! So, y’all keep dreaming that our team is ready to challenge for titles
Agreed, so why did Emery buy Socrates.Why did Emery renew Xhaka’s contract. Why did he go in for a 35 year old Lich. when Belerin is not good enough.Why did he talk to the press that Ramsey (of all) could be our captain, that led him to demand more money!Why was Eleneny’s contract renewed? Why no wingers? Why no approach made for Baley or Zaha? Hate all the so called fans saying” give him time” or “look our season starts against West Ham”. Just look as Sarri, 3 weeks into Chelsea, brought Jorzinho & Kepa and off to a winning start.Serious questions for the manager. Why did we not go in for Seri? or NZonzi?.All we do is blame Wenger , which Emery could have undone if he had the guts to take on the management/ownership. That’s the reason Allegiri turned us down for he is no “yes sir” man.The board/owners would gladly keep Emery with/without results as long as he buys cheap in conjunction with them.Going to be a long season and Arsene’s going to have a laugh.
The Board will give Emery time because they were as responsible as Wenger for leaving the squad in such poor quality.As for not buying – The transfer budget was £70m and it’s all gone.Where was the money coming from for extra signings?
Then he has to ask himself the serious question – why did he accept the offer if he cannot deliver results. Smart managers like Allegiri and Simeone turned us down. If the transfer budget was limited to 70 million, why did he take up the job, because he was unemployed? Board will definitely give him time as he gels well with their stingy plans and sub standard quality and hopeless results. Deluded manager!!
You do need help bro & by the way, why do u go by the name ‘red and white’?
Agree with everything you’ve said RedAndWhite ,that’s what I’ve been saying before the season even kicked off ,yes the budget was 70 million but why didn’t he just buy 2 quality players with that rather than the 5 when the goalkeepers not even playing and 2 aged defenders ,who are not players for the future .he could of sold off a couple of players ,xhaka ,Ramsey (would have just been happy for him to go for free mind )welbeck,iwobi ,theres abit more for the budget .and @kklin not sure what’s with the name shaming to be honest,at least he’s contributing to the post rather than your one liners .and I think red and white is our strip colour if I’m not mistaken .
Entitled to your opinions but without a proper assessment they’re just that – opinions that aren’t even grounded in any fact. At some point you must realise that we were fortunate to get Emery if the others turned us down because of a transfer budget in the first season. It’s your first season in the Premier league and you expect a transfer budget of what? Then you have to factor in the wages, the lack of champions league. Which defender can you see that lights up the league that you want? Van Dyke only came last season! Pep spent serious money trying to get his defence right and it took 3 seasons.
Even klopp didn’t spend big in his first season, neither did Poch or Guardiola. If you can get better performances out of the players you have and have a vision of playing that everyone can see what you are trying to do, then you deserve more money. If not – you leave. United gave Mourinho a huge budget and what are United playing like? This is Mourinho with a proven track record of winning in the Prem.
If it was not Emery then who? The man who single handedly won the Europa league 3 times and in that time Tottenham and yes even Liverpool played in… He beat them with a squad half as good. So you can’t now slate him when his own record shows he can push players to perform.
The fact is you couldn’t pick a better manager who wanted to come and coach us. Ancelotti is done, tuchel didn’t want it, Simeone was committed to Atletico, Enrique is largely unproven – he didn’t get the PSG job did he?
So given all those variables you end up with Emery who I think based on the assessment is a good fit. He is already drilling the team better and you have to give him time
Xhaka’s contract was more from board than the coach. Player buying is not Emery’s choice, he does not even have 50% say or veto power anymore. Ozil is a 350k/week leech handed to him to manage. If you look at our budget, coupled with no CL revenue, Socrates/Lich were sensible buys. May be that Turkish lad would have made the cut for same price, but at this point we have enough “young and coming” CBs. NZonzi with Torriera in same window was too far fetched. I felt we missed the ship in Ramsey, and Danny, the funds could have been better utilized elsewhere, may be on a CB or a winger.
funkyrith, love to know where you where you get your information from.
Xhakas contract, less than50% say from Emery?
I actually see why he went for the signings he did with the limited budget (why did he have one anyway), but if Ramsey and Wellbeck are such bad players, what funds would we get?
I too can see some improvements especially with players cutting balls back into the box from out wide but in general I agree with Shearer and think we could well be mid table this year and not win anything.
Yes.
Emery has had all summer to organise and train our defenders, but, instead, he’s decided to work on a press-attack instead.
WTF
Yes, he’s had all summer, but it took guardiola and klopp two full years to get the players to play what they want, so pls chill on the blaming pill you took, did you actually expect arsenal to beat city and Chelsea at Stamford bridge?
@Sarmmie you are absolutely right but those two clubs bought the right players for huge amounts of cash in the two seasons and that’s so unlike Arsenal they just buy any players to keep us fans quite for a while, lets hop that it will change but unlikely,
hope we get two win’s in the next two games our confidence will come back if not Zidan will come knocking on Emery’s door
Yeah, hopefully we’ll get into top 4 and that should increase our transfer budget, and hopefully again, kroenke won’t put the profit into another business
Yes but how long before they bought them… Two years later and let’s be honest, both of those managers got it horribly wrong at times with their defence and those players are only now being sold. Klopp effectively bought a midfield and strike force first and then worked on his defence. He had them firing before he fixed the defence and Liverpool still leaked goals last season. That’s why they finished 3rd with all those goals scored.
6 weeks is not long enough to fix a defence, you are training habits and they are grown men, habits are hard to kill and to then train new ones will take longer. City still shake at the back unless pep is shouting from the touchline, we saw how we forced them to make mistakes, it is possible.
Sarmmie, you’re spot on!
But, all i’m saying is that is that the priority was the defence (organisation etc) and not the attack. He seems to have got his priorities mixed up.
Far too early to tell bruv.
We jus play dem last too premier.
Now weze play Westham Caerdyf
Tooncastle Evertoffee Whatfor
Foulham Leichter Palice
I reckon we will win all deeze game.
Game 11 we play Livapool den Wolfes
Bornemouth Spurz + Manx Utd.
So weight till after game 15 only den we can tell where dis team at.
Yes should see some good improvement leading up to the Liverpool game…if not it will be a worry. Just hope Emery is as ruthless as we are hopeing.
Positives:
Emergence of Guendouzi – £7 million purchase from Ligue 2 has clocked 4 tackles and 4.5 interceptions per match against City and Chelsea! 87,5 % passing accuracy, he has made Xhaka irrelevant!
Torreira – 1.4 tackels and 2.7 interceptions with 92% passing accuracy, yet to start a match but he looks like a great partner for Guendouzi
Iwobi – he only started the Chelsea match but he looked completely different. The way he protected the ball and worked in tight spaces impressed me. He should start against West Ham.
Sokratis – had my doubts about him and yes, he is as slow as Mertesacker, but he’s really at 1vs1 as long as its no running race. He should be partnered with a quick CB.
Negatives:
Aubameyang misfiring, he needs to pick up ASAP.
Lacazette being benched, WHY?
Not getting a CB, why? We had all summer ffs. It has already bit us in the arse.
Bellerin starting ahead of Lichsteiner.
Xhaka starting ahead of Guendouzi.
Mesut Özil.
Playing from the back seems so fragile when the opposition is pressing. Players not accustomed to it.
Meant *Xhaka starting ahead of Torreira*
Torreira has less match fitness, he will replace Xhaka I assume.
No CB? Papa came in. We are not a club who can outspend others anymore, and we dont have CL money. So we have to spend within our reach.
Lichsteiner should start few matches ahead of Bellerin, yes.
Mesut should be rotated a bit, or play for 60-70min. His stamina wont allow more than that in a pressing system.
Ramsey must be sold, not sure if we can sell Danny anymore as his market is in EPL
We have signed new kit deal, worth 30mil more than the previous one per year. That will add some funds next year or in January.
I do see some changes, I like the ruthlessness of his subs in both games, but to say the players will keep fighting until the last whistle I doubt that, it wasn’t evident in our last game against Chelsea, in the second half we offered nothing going forward and when Hazard and Kovacic came on for them we went into our shell and tried playing for a draw. That’s still the way of Wenger. These are things the manager can’t help the team with, there should be leaders out on the pitch to pull the strings for him. Bellerin should learn when to go up the pitch and when to sit tight and make it difficult. He left Lacazette 1v1 with Hazard. Hazard will go past Lacazette 10 out of 10 times. He should have tacked in alongside Lacazette Inoder to make it 2v1 that way hazard would be forced to either go back or try and take them both on but because he didn’t do that it left Lacazette isolated. Emery can’t tel him that from the touch line he must know wats expected of him. Mkhitaryan doesn’t do any good in the last goal either, he should be the one tracking Alonso back into our box. But Emery would have picked up on that and I’m sure he will make changes according because that’s simply not good enough specially not at Stamford Bridge. It also could have been embarrassing if not for Cech. Hope Leno gets a game out as our next fixture aren’t so daunting, let’s see wat his like as a shot stopper and then compare from there!
Well said, Kurt, i also noticed something else, we now create chances even when we’re not controlling possession. Against city last season, we were playing trash and we couldn’t create meaningful chances, but when lacazette came on against city, the chances came, eventhough some were due to city’s mistakes but against Chelsea they were clearly possessing us and we created chances, clear cut chances, only we didn’t take them
The biggest mistake the manager made was not identify arsenal weaknesses and try and go for a draw against man city, that gives a lot of confidence to the team to push on from there but as usual relying on the same deadwoods to perform miracle without the added confidence is a tall order, it will take at least a season to sort arsenal problems out as long as we are not relegated then I’m looking forward to next season
I go to Arsenal to watch a game of Football.We are supposedly a Big Club and you want us to go and play for a draw on the first game of the season against the Reigning Champions?Thats what teams like Cardiff will need to do this year to survive.Did you not watch Brighton best Utd on Sunday?Get a grip Pal.Its two games
Their you have it Phil getting a result against a team that beat us black and blue a couple of times last season beats emotions everyday of the week at least it gives the team a lot of confidence going to the Chelsea game now we have zero points after two games well thought mate
No..the biggest mistake unai made was when he quoted that ramsey was central to his plans,that he wanted to build the team around him and make him captain…that gave ramsey ideas above his station so that he and his agent could now have carte blanche to hold the club to ransom.
The club should get ruthless..sepecially after the sanchez, ozil and even wenger contract debacles….if a player wont sign banish him to the bench or the reserves and let them see what their future valuation and offers turn out like.
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Anyone who doesn’t see the difference between this arsenal and wenger arsenal will be football blind. Our attacking is more direct and the only reason we haven’t scored more goals is bad finishing like vs chelsea and confusion due to new tactics in counters vs city e.g ozil actually pressed and won the ball from the defender around the 80 min and lacazette thought he was offside when he could have been one on one.
Emery actually coaches during matches unlike some previous ones and attacks opponent weakness like the wing play and cut-backs against chelsea(Damn you auba why a bad day vs chelsea? ). Yes the defence is horrible which was to be expected as we were already bad and with a coach new to epl it was always gonna be ugly. The only coaches who actually survive in their 1st epl season are defensive coach like conte and mourinho, attacking coach like emery, pep or klopp get taken apart by the intensity of the league. Remind me how many millions pep wasted on defence before he finally struck gold… mangala, otamendi, bravo lol
Guendouzi is really looking like a steal, rookie mistakes yes but the kid has balls and he is averaging 8.5 tackle/interception per game while having good passing. Dump xhaka and play him with torreira and ramsey and we will have a midfield with pressing and energy plus the recovery pace of torreira and the forward runs of ramsey to break up defending teams.
Sell Dead Wood Players
Ozil 45m-wages £350,000
Ramsey 25m-wages £110,00
Bellerin 25m-wages £100,00
Xhaka 25m-wages £90,000
Mustafi 25m-wages £90,000
We can’t be giving so much to platers that give so little back
That’s enough money to buy really good replacements
With that money we can easily buy 3 very good players!
£145m/3=48m per player
£770,000=231,000 per player wages
Not a lot of players can say no to 200k a week.
We just need to find them. Two midfielders and one CB. And promote one player from the youth to help with our left and right back issue. Liverpool done that and at the time there left backs weren’t as good as our youths but they were given the chance and see how good they are now.
WHAHAHAHA! WHO WILL BUY OZIL £45M and also PAY HIM £350K a-week? PSG? Man City? The man grabbed the board by the balls and that contract was nothing short of extortion. Seeing that the board caved into his ridiculous wage demands, can’t really blame the incompetent Ramsey thinking he can push the club around too! Ozil was a good player at his £140K a week, but now, his salary overwhelmingly exceeds his capabilities and am sorry to tell you NO ONE WILL BUY HIM NOT TODAY, NOT NEXT SEASON, NOT EVER .
Maybe he will be appealing to PSG or Juventus, I don’t care how much he earns at Other clubs or wat they offer him. But his no longer wanted here, his too expensive and lazy and those to don’t go together. We must just get rid of him ASAP same as the others.
Unmistakeable and definite improvements from the coasting, slothful, dismal days of Wenger. First a new and hugely welcome intolerance to slacking players and a refusal to accept shirkers. The welcome subs of Ramsey and Ozil, who has serious form for slacking; let’s be honest about that. The great faith put in the exciting Guendouzi, who has more “balls” in his slim, young frame than half the squad in Wengers time. He is a huge plus. Next , the decade long overdue acquisition of a proper ball winner of proven quality in Torreira. Next , the buying of a proper defender in Lichtsteiner, another teak tough buy by Emery, who MUST now completely replace the hopeless Bellerin. I also applaud – as does Gary Neville too- the decsion to stay with his high press AND play out from the back style. It is clear to me , as a realist, that Cech will soon be replaced by Leno, as we need a keeper who is comfortable with the ball at his feet. It is KROENKES fault, not Emery’s that we are stuck with a slow, ponderous immobile CB like Mustafi. I do, sadly, see similar traits in Sokratis and it is only a matter of time before Mavropanos becomes a regular at CB, in my view. There is at long last a determination to defend AT ALL from our “head coach” and to do it properly, even though unlearning WENGER’S HARMFUL WAYS WILL TAKE MUCH TIME. ALL these are positive and good changes from the awful dog days of WENGER THE HARMFUL. Lastly, for those on here who think I should no longer mention Wenger, even though his legacy is still harming us; TOUGH! I care only for our club, not a failed manager who even now I wake up thrilled each morning to think he is GONE (AT LEAST IN PERSON). I have great faith in the dynamic Emery BUT I also know it will take some time and several windows to rid our club completely of WENGERS MALIGN INFLUENCE AND HIS DEADWOOD.
I love this, we asked for change and we got it. No is no time to turn on the manager after just to games! Specially after that two games were against the last two Premier league Champions! Do u think Man United or even spurs would have a different results playing high flying city or Chelsea at Stamford Bridge I don’t think so! We need to be real about this. Point is we learning and the more games we player the better we will get, basically our most difficult games are already past us. It should and could only go up from here but we also need to know that we need to be patient and supportive. Good times are coming Emery is under no illusion that he has some deadwood players it’s what his gonna do about it that matters and after the last two games I can already kinda see the message. U either with him or u gon get some bench time. Can are the days where players can stroll the a match, because of their name or wages.
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I believe we are seeing improvements but this is still wenger players. Emery needs to bring in his own players which suit his style, as i believe our current players bar Torreira, Guendozi and Auba/Laca fit his style.
We need a complete rebuild.
Koulibaly (CB)
Torreira Rabiot (Guendozi sub)
Bailey Draxler Rues/Coman
Auba
I don’t know why I get so worked up over us losing 2 games! To change how we’ve done things for 22 years isn’t going to happen overnight, I get that. I think levelling at Chelsea made me think we were going to go on & win, but to go & concede again was devastating!!
So we’re still the butt of everyone’s jokes….. we’re still conceding…..the media & pundits are still slagging us off, so nothing’s changed there!
I can’t believe we have a 6 pointer with WEST HAM on Saturday…. if we don’t win that, I’m going to become a hermit for at least a year ?
Sorry for all the doom & gloom, but I hate it when we lose!!
The sooner Belleri n and Mustafi are omitted from our back four the better.We are bereft of top quality defenders but these two have no positional sense whatsoever and I very much doubt if they are capable of improving.As for Xhaka and Ozil, I suspect Emery has already decided to omit them from his longer term plans, but the problem is who on earth would buy them on their excessive wages?.The time to judge Emery is at the end of the season not after 2 matches against top five sides.
if we think that Liverpool has more income or cash then us then we are all crazy stupid ( no disrespect meant ) our income and outgoings are so wide apart in our favor its crazy and what with new sponsorship next summer it takes us right up there with the best, our problem is that over the years we under bought mid twenties age top players who come good and sold them for a fortune like Liverpool and the Spuds, you would think Kronke who suppose to be top business man would realize it long ago and bought some talent in the period where we were the only team in Europe who didn’t buy any outfield players when players were cheepish
Yes I agree we have more money than Liverpool, but our owners are completely different & now look at how a million miles apart our teams are ☹
There are massive changes now, if not for anything at all, substitutions are made at the right time. Which gives me the impression that the manager is able to read the games and identify our weakness and try to fix it as quickly as possible. Unlike somoen who’ll wait until the 80th minute before he make any changes.
its laughable to read post of negative comments and complains after 2 games.. goodness, the article was spot on and I totally agree with Shearer. it will take time for emery to stamp his authority on the team and club, hwever gunners don’t av the patient to wait for 3 transfer windows and 18months to start seeing lasting positive changes. having said that, I don’t really expect Emery to bag in any silver wear for the gunners this season or finish top 4 either… I will be satisfied if he can really built in that fighting mentality and instilled in the team tactical wits. may b next season, he has make d team a top 4 contender and title contenders. for now, I’m just loving the changes have seen so far, I mean, ozil substituted at 60minute wow…