Emery on the ropes despite comeback win by Konstantin Mitov
We won with 10 men against Aston Villa after being a goal down. Only 9 times has this happened in the PL, and we’ve done it 3 times. But in all honesty this is where the positivity stops. We were poor again. We almost screwed a third game in a row which we should’ve won.
I mean, you can only so far paper over the defensive leaks. They are not holes, they are craters. Why are we starting both Sokratis and Luiz? I feel sad for Chambers. This defense is so bad and he’s a sub? Look at the first goal we conceded. I’ve seen this too many times this season already. In just 6 games!
What worries me was Emery’s body language. He looked like Wenger. His was just sitting in his chair clueless. The subs were late and he was lucky this was Aston Villa. The players got him out of trouble. We’re relying on the individual qualities we have in some players to outdo the errors others make. I am sorry I am seeing little improvement, especially in defense. What is our style? The only thing I know is we’re playing out of the back with little success.
The manager completely mistakes the starting line up. He wants to play with wingers, which do not exist in our squad. He plays wing-backs who are uninterested in defending as LB and RB. Kolasinac was at major fault for Villas second goal. And what about somebody making a foul? Look at Auba at the end of the game, taking one for the team to prevent any chances they might have.
Instead our defense let them dance past us and we conceded again. I’m just bored and tired of individual mistakes. For me if Chambers doesn’t start instead of Luiz or Sokratis at Old Trafford I’d be amazed. Honestly ask yourselves if it mattered whether it was Mustafi or one of the aforementioned? I said many times, it’s not about one player, it’s our defensive coaching that is non-existent. We moved out Bouldy and nothing has changed.
The defense lacks support from midfield. We don’t have wingers who track back and Torreira, the only player who tries in that matter, sits on the bench while we’re playing Xhaka. I fail to see any reason why Xhaka is on the pitch, let alone why is he captain. Look at Guendouzi, a guy 20 years old with so much drive and determination to help others, and even take it upon himself if he has to. Why are the youngsters showing more passion than players on tens of thousands of pounds a week?
Speaking of them, why are we not playing Ozil when we need a goal against Villa at home? If we would’ve lost, everyone would’ve asked this question. We need to stop pretending and living in dreamland. The fans spoke, when they booed Xhaka, and they don’t like the manager.
The only other player apart from Guendouzi in the team who showed the difference of quality between Arsenal and Aston Villa was Aubameyang. To give Pepe the chance to get on the score sheet to improve his confidence. Shouldn’t this be coming from the manager?
I think he won’t last the season. Sacking him now would be a masterstroke in my opinion. He looks finished. He looks depressed. He knows the problems, but doesn’t know how to manage the issues. Allegri is available. Just saying. And as stupid as it sounds, Mourinho could also do the job. Our squad is not that bad, it just needs the right manager.
Konstantin
We won, got 3 points and back to 4th in the PL Table.
That’s all I care about
COYG
???!How ironic! people keep on saying managers are judged on results,well if it were really the case Emery shouldn’t be in trouble,we are 4th,on equal points (11)as Leicester 3rd,above Chelsea, man utd,spurs…who all lost this weekend still he is being slaughtered by the way I didn’t say he was perfect nor our team,but you have to be fair what is more important results or style?when Wenger was still manager people were complaining that we were passing the ball too much and had to walk the ball in the goals,we played better than most teams but still lost games,so which one is it?or us it that some people (probably the same ones who wanted Wenger out) will never be satisfied??
Roy Keane said he would have been lynched in the Man Utd dressing room saying finishing 4th is an achievement .
I agree ,as much as it gets you into the CL no one remembers the teams who finished 4th .
Looking at our team this season I would have thought we would be up there ,but after6 games we are already 7points off top and not one game have we looked like a good team ,utterly drab football being played pathetic team selections and random formations that Emery thinks up on the morning of the game .
Sooner hes fcked off the better ,you can tel the players are starting to wonder what the fck is going on ,I mean where the hell was Ozil again ,playing at home against a promoted team playing with 2 defensive minded midfielders ,he a bore of a manager just listening to him puts me to sleep and his footballs twice as boring .
Even the nut job fans who keep making excuses for him must now see what he’s capable of .
you only care about 3 points with your head down your chest,can’t you be man enough to see how poor management is. I think you are out of the track.Damn!!
The problem with ignoring the way results are obtained is that it ignores the fundamental issues.
It should be clear to everyone that Emery has failed to improve our defending. Closing our eyes to that fact just because we managed to squeeze one out against Villa is only delaying the inevitable need to address this shortcoming.
Amen, brother, this result just papers over the obvious shortcomings which include a dire lack of defensive coaching and any tactics. We’re back to passing across the field, creating space off the ball is non-existent and decision-making is very poor.
I never thought I would say this but at least Wenger’s teams looked like they had an identity going forward despite horrendous defending.
We now still have the horrendous defending and not much identity going forward.
One pundit calls the manager Uni Wenger. Is he so wrong?
Wenger has his blind spot in Ozil and Unai Emery has a blind spot with Xhaka. But for the rest not much has changed.
Not forgetting that Unai now has a better tean than Wenger
I couldn’t agree more. Arsenal games no longer interest me. Same old boring game, no style, no direction.
Yesterday was far from boring…
??
If Emery still sticks with Xhaka he should be sacked, good he knows now the fans don’t like Xhaka’s skill set and performances.
Well, we are still in our unbeaten run with average performances so let’s see where it goes.
I really don’t have anything personal against Niles, but if he can just sit out like 3 matches it will be good for him and the team, we all saw what Chambers who is also an average Rb brought to the team yesterday, our major problems is our full backs if we can fix that am sure we will be fine and also I think emery is also getting tired of Xhaka, Emery may be stubborn but he’s not a fool I can see him dropping Xhaka against United.If we can drop Xhaka and partner torrera with Gwen with Ceballos I think we should be fine. And on the Ozil topic the coach told us last week that he didn’t travel with the team because he needed rest, maybe the coach is still resting him.
You literaly wrote all what’s on my mind
UE drop Xhaka vs united…haha in ur dream.
You are 100% correct in your total analysis Konstantin! What I like about you is that you speak the truth and see the facts as they are, not how you want them to be. “This makes a great analyst in any field”.
Some players dug deep to get the results we were hoping for. Coach Emery has had prior success in the Europa League tournament with teams. I must give him credit for those achievements BUT this is the Premier League. As you stated Konstantin, he doesn’t have a clue and trully needs to be released of his duties asap. Next up Man U. Take note my beloved Arsenal fans. Lets look at what is…. the starting lineup will say it all..cheers and lets enjoy the three points..
Exactly mates…cant pick a team. Chambers did well in Germany, so did even Mustafi, Willock obviously..We should have lost at 11 and won as he had no choice but play Chambers losing Niles, forced to do so. Why keep lazy Diva Pepe on and take Saka off? Same as Xhaka or Sokra who should be benched from start.
Chambers been available but never played, Holding & Bellerin are now back, we have more options but Emery wont pair Chambers & Holding nor have a Luiz in front of them with Gendouzi. Chambers or Luiz should be played at DM and one of at them at CB with Holding…
Emery wont do so but have xhaka or torreira as DM if not both… Luiz and Holding or Chambers when Luiz or Chambers should be associated to Holding or as DM.
Bellerin Chambers Holding Kolas with Luiz and Gendouzi in front of CBs, very tuff to beat…
Who knows, heard Emery loves hairs, can also be used to blind opponent; he may get the vision anyhow…
I vote for Big and Lil brother hairs; blind all PL strikers…
Emery gave all sorts of rubbish excuses for not playing Ozil, not even as sub. What nonsense “give youngster a chance”? Arsenal lost to Watford with a terrible performance he didn’t start with Ozil for AV match. Who can argue that Ozil is not better and more creative than Wilock, Saka and Nelson ? 2-1 down to AV, Emery sent in Wilock instead of Ozil. What did you see in JW? JW and RN lost possession and made poor passes in match against Frankfurt. They have talent but still not good enough to challenge Ozil for a place, am I not right? Are Arsenal owners blind? Leaving a great talented, experienced player earning 350,000 pounds a week, on the bench, Deliberately but by the manager.
Ozil needed rest and the manager is giving to him, am sure Ozil will be back stronger and fitter, in Ozil I trust.
@Len
If you watch Arsenal regularly, you’ll be fully aware that Ozil offers almost nothing when coming on as a sub. It almost never happened Wenger of course, but under Emery we’ve seen how ineffective Ozil can be from the bench. We were in a situation where we badly needed pace, determination, aggression, passion, and work rate. Attributes Ozil does not possess.
In regards to not starting, well Ozil has had more than enough opportunities, and has only got worse. I just do not understand how Emery can see how bad the likes of Ozil, Mustafi, Miki are, etc, but cannot see it with Xhaka?
TMJW-Ozil had 71 minutes at Watford and played well.Not outstanding but well enough to be encouraged. Yesterday he was benched against a team that needed creativity so in my mind Ozil was a banker to start. One thing I can tell you-Ozil will be at this Club longer than Emery.If this Manager wants to save his job he needs to realise that he has a better chance of doing that with Ozil in the team than on the bench.Its his blind faith in playing the hapless Xhaka every week that will be his downfall
TMJW, I’m not sure if you watched Ozil against Watford in his first match of the season. As the game wore on his partnership with Ceballos was settling down nicely and loads of space was being created. Then Tinkerman took of Ceballos and the team stopped playing through Ozil, which is a repeat offence from last season. What kind of a duffer will have his team ignore the creative player? Sorry, Ozil isn’t going to run around like a headless chicken that Emery wants our players to be. He will do what he does best, that is to create goals, so it’s better to use his unquestionable ability to the benefit of the club. Bringing him on as a late substitute isn’t “playing him”.
Both make a fair point in regards to his Watford performance, but that was only one game, against a poor team. In fact, not even entire game. Ozil was extremely underwhelming as well, although one of our better performers on the day.
But I do not judge a player on one game, and hope neither of you do as well, as that wouldn’t be fair. As I said, Ozil has had more than enough opportunities, and has actually got a lot worse since we’ve upgraded our attack.
Emery maybe stuck with Ozil, but it doesn’t mean he has to use him. The likes of Mustafi are not going to improve us, and exact same applies to Ozil. Just wish the same rule would apply to Xhaka!
I disagree. Ozil has played only one game this season and he was doing well. Why judge him for last season games while he performed well in pre season?
@Kenyanfan
Pre-season is irrelevant. What has Ozil been doing in competitive matches? Not a lot, and for a very long time, under two different managers now.
So you believe every player should be given a clean slate at the beginning of each season? Also, how long do you give an experienced player to recapture their form?
Len,you Just said all,d major problem of dis team…..emery
What I don’t get is you all obsession with “getting rid of Xhaka”. If I may ask what did Xhaka do wrong yesterday?
Wrong yesterday? He certainly doesn’t do things right. So when he’s not doing anything wrong, he’s not doing anything right either. And when he’s doing things wrong, we concede.
He has NO QUALITIES. He took a yellow early on so his little impact diminishes even further.
Is he a great tackler? No.
Intercepts? No.
A goal threat? No.
Creates chances? No.
Good at pressing? Not really, he’s slow and always behind.
Long balls? He’s good at them but Guendouzi is better.
Misplaces passes? Yes.
Stupid fouls? Yes.
He is taking a central midfielders position in the starting XI and yet he brings nothing into the team. We play with 10 men when he’s around. Mind as well put me on.
He was on the pitch !!!!
Xhaka’s stats doesn’t impress anyone eg as a screen in front of the back line
1-How many successful tackles does he make
2-How many interceptions
3-His turns are heavy and easily passed by.
Toreira who is a good tackler is left out.
He got out of bed.
??
I have said it from last season emery is not the man for us,
Would love it if we sacked him and bring in brendan Rodgers ,
His teams play nice football and he has Leicester back organized .
And please emery bring sok…luiz…xakai..ozil..with you…
He’ll still use this two useless defenders and their so called useless captain. Emery should be sacked before its too late. Look at Arsenal now unbelievable…..
Team v united..
Leno
Bell. Chambers. Holding. Tierney
Torrer. Guddenz
Willock
Pepe. Auba. Saka
Who is gona feed attacking players? Tierny not available sir…
Leno
Bellerin – Holding – Luiz – Kolas
Chambers – Gendouzi
Ceballos. Willock
Auba – Saka
Pepe for Saka, Nelson for Ceballos, Torreira for Willock.
But we know Emery cant get it right Holding and Bellerin wont change that!
If he plays that team we will be done,
Their is no width in the team ,
He has to play 3 up fronth to push their fullbacks back ,also 3 midfielders to try win that battle also willock is good at breaking into the box,this united team is their for the taken
Our back four against Villa, individually and collectively was poor as usual.Hopefully the four incumbents will be replaced shortly when Bellerin,Tierney and Holding return to match fitness and are joined by Chambers who should never have been left out after doing so well at Newcastle.Mavroponas who was apparently outstanding for the under 23 team last week, will also be available and may well be on the bench against Notts Forest.Of more concern to me however is the lack of a physically strong DM with the football intelligence to defend on and off the ball.Arsenal do not have a player with these attributes were were displayed very well yesterday by Declan Rice of West Ham.He is the type of player we badly need it we are to seriously challenge the top two, which must be the aim of a club with our pedigree.
Good article and completely agree with view point. To add Maitland-Niles doesnt deserve to be wearing an Arsenal shirt. Playing from the back is a disaster for this team, hence the Coach should decide against it. Add to that, the team never looks like scoring from a Corner and on the other side of pitch always looks vulnerable, defending a corner. SO what exactly is the Coach doing? Arsenal are winning despite of Emery and not because of him
Do you know that Niles is not a right back being played out of position??
Only mistake Emery made yesterday was playing Xhaka in the match imo… With him on the pitch the back line just doesn’t have the cover it needs.
It wasn’t Emery who told AMN to pick up the bookings (even if one wasn’t deserved), nor did he tell Guendouzi and Kola to switch off and not pick up the run for the first goal, that’s on the players heads. Same goes for the second goal – Chambers and Sokratis should have closed down quicker and Luiz could have done better trying to block the shot ?♂️
I’m not entirely convinced Emery is the man to take us all the way back to the top but whilst he’s here, and especially whilst we still have a chunk of the squad out injured I will give him my support….. Things should be completely different with Bellerin, Holding and KT making up 3 of the back 4.
I’d also say the missing piece connecting midfield to the attack is Laca, he is the engine that makes the team tick and should take up a more Bergkampesque role for us imo allowing Auba to stay central rather than being wasted out on the left.
Too many of our fans want instant success and I’m sorry but that won’t happen no matter who the manager is…. Rebuilding is a marathon not a bloody sprint
Instant success? After 44 EPL matches, what is instant about it? You are defending a numpty who cannot seem to do anything right.
44 games without his players you mean?
He only made the team his own in the last window and since then what will probably turn out to be our entire back line has been out of action, some players like Torreira have only just returned to fitness and other key components like Laca have picked up injuries. Not to mention the abundance of youth options we now have for multiple positions all putting in decent shifts to earn starts…. I fully expect tinkering, how else do you find that winning combo?
As I said before he may not be the man to take us all the way back to the top but c’mon give the guy a chance to actually have his whole squad available to play before you write him off
Keep trotting out excuses – Wenger’s team played better with lesser players and he had s litany of injuries as well.
Emery took the job with certain promises, based on the team he was inheriting, and has made a complete mess of everything. If we win it is despite him managing the team -take out Auba’s goals and you will know where we will be in the table.
No excuses just facts, just like a bit of an unfair comparison as Wengers teams were also filled with Wengers players but, ignoring that, let’s do a simple reality check….. 1st season…. 5th and EL final all without making the squad his own, could have been better but that’s the way it went.
So far this season we are in 4th, within touching distance of second and we were victorious in what should be our toughest match of the EL group, without his full squad ready to go. Meaning we are still on track to have a successful season and things should only improve going forward.
If it doesn’t then maybe we have something to moan about but right now imo it’s time to just get on with supporting the team and manager and stop acting like we are about to be bloody relegated
Finally, on sense and patience. Those fans who are too young to remember the pre Wenger years are too impatient for success, helped by the progressively higher total points needed for a champion winning team. Look how long Liverpool fell off the map in the 90s for, or how man u still haven’t managed to find a manager to do anything like what Georgie managed.
Emery has taken a dysfunctional team and bar an end of season collapse /Europa cup win would have already improved on what wenger did with the same players. He deserves a bit of time. If at the end of the season the club think someone like allegri is the way to go he has a break clause, in the mean time he is at least doing as well as Wenger and once the new defence /laca etc come back we can only improve. Hats off to you mad hatter for introducing a touch of sanity!
I am not saying that Emery hasn’t been making mistakes this season, as I feel his own performance hasn’t been great, but I do have some sympathy. I think he’s averaging around 4/5 key players missing for every game so far, 3 out of his first choice back 4 haven’t played a single minute, and he had to deal with a sending off, with a whole half to play yesterday.
Some fans say ridiculous things, such as injuries are not an excuse, so I ask them – if Trent, Robertson, and VVD, hadn’t played a single minute so far this season for Liverpool, and Firmino had missed most games, and one of their DM/CM’s was struggling early on with fitness, would Klopp still have won all of his games?
I completely agree with everything you’ve just said!?,even if you don’t rate Emery the fair thing to do would be to give him the benefit of the doubt until he has a fully fit squad to play and if by then nothing changes,no improvement,still playing underperforming players then you will have valid reasons to have him sacked,even I agree the performances have been substandard but we’re still 4th above our main rivals but reading some comments you would think we were at the bottom of the league!
Well said Konstantine.
I would love to see Emery sacked but expect him to be allowed to preside over another failed season.
More importantly, if we sack Emery who comes in? Who can fix our defending? Who can give us an identity? I have heard names like Arteta, Freddie, Allegri and even Jose M mentioned. But are they really the answer. This early into the season we can not surrender to a caretaker type of solution. If we sack Emery (which won’t happen). We need to replace him with a longer-term solution
Brendan Rogers has earned a chance.
Pep said this week that he was certain that Arteta would succeed him as man city manager do forget about him,also we couldn’t afford Allegro nor Jose, so very good question you asked,who would take the arsenal job??
It really is a bit of an irrelevant question at this time since Emery is here to stay but we could have had worse managers than Emery so his successor will be important.
Tricky thing IMO is that if we qualify for CL football it will increase our ability to pull a top manager however if we leave Emery in charge we will likely fail to qualify for CL football despite current weakness at Man U.
Kolasinac at fault for their second goal? Dude. He was on the opposite side of the pitch. Can you at least watch the game before writing an article?
Yes, especially when Chambers put his hands up for the second goal.
How i look at it, is that we continue to do the same mistakes, so what have changed? We all wanted a solid defense, and we still need to score 3 goals to win a game, that to me shows that something is wrong.
Coming back from a red card, 1-2 and to win is great sure, 3 point in the bag. But i can’t find a single improvement from last season…
The whole team needs to defend, not only our backline.
There’s nothing more Emry can offer, now is the real right time to offload him. There’s no department that he has done anything meaningful, we parade the best attacking individuals that should exude terror to any opposing team but not so because Emry cannot harness them properly, we lack a genuine midfield that can control the game and feed the strikers well with balls, many times the strikers comes to the middle to collect ball and tell me who they are going to pass the ball to when our midfielders Marshalled by Xhaka are more interested in running back to our defense box to join in committing catalogs of blunders. Why did Emry instruct the midfielders to be escorting their opponents into the eighteen yard box uninterrupted, must eighty percent moves of the opposing teams end up in Arsenal’s eighteen yard box, if it is not his instructions why has he not seen it and checkmate it or he is really bereft of right ideas, who and who are our attacking midfielders and DM, how is Emry working on them to strike rhythm with the defense and attack. The defense is a bunch of Hollywood actors putting it on a lighter note, We are in Fourth position based on individual brilliance had it been that Emry is competent we should be breathing down the neck of Man city right now. How can Emry be sitting down or standing in a corner pulling his nose or jaw bemused while looking at the glaring errors of his players. What on earth is Kolasiniac doing donning Arsenal shirt, he cannot connect to the strikers, shoots to the defenders legs, most times sends the ball to the keeper or whips it across out of reach of everyone and can’t dribble properly. Where are Frank Rykard, Patrick viera… Emry is not the manager we need.
There is no defensive partnership that Emery can come up with right now that has played enough games together to know each others movements well and be insync.The only way is to keep playing them together,and i know Emery will keep playing them together.You will probably see a different defensive partnership mid week against forrest,but against Man U it will again be Sok-Luiz.He is going to play them until they are good
No, because that wouldn’t suit his agenda. Just take a look on this site: kolasinac/amn/xhaka/mustafi are the ones responsible for every mistake on the pitch, emery is a clueless amateur who walked in off the street and almost got us relegated last season and will again this season, and chambers and torreira are world class superstars who would win us the champions league if only they had the chance. Even ozil had gone full circle- last season the majority wanted him dropped, and now that he’s not playing suddenly Emery is a fool for leaving him out.
FYI we’re forth in the league, level on points for third and 2 points behind the champions. We won 3-0 away in our European match in which a number of our youngsters impressed. All of this without at least two, possible three, of our strongest back four missing.
Abandon ship, we’re all gunna die!
This was supposed to be a reply to Joe’s comment above
Sack him now, we should’ve gotten top four last season but I’m so confident we will get it this season that if I find some odds I like then I’m backing us to finish in the top three. The odds might turn for or against us, I’d only bet if it turns against us because I’m not waiting an entire season for a minimal payout. This is our target people, I don’t want to hear some kid tell me he’s an old man and he says we should be aiming for top spot every season, get real kid.
This next step is a step that Emery can help us out with, you only need look at last season we missed out on both fronts but lost our defence and overplayed certain players and he was just with us checking what’s in his disposal. We’re selling players that fans want long sold, I thought fans would be esp behind that tactic. We are now looking for players at a good age, players like Tierney, Saliba ..next viva la France! to add to our spine along with the superior warrior Matteo Gunnnzi.
We finally went big on a player, this wasn’t happening before Emery, we also have Freddie and his bunch of young Gooners. Lets see the season out, if he makes the target then we are on course just as Klopp was on course, if he fluffs it he knows he’s a Gonner. We will still have some very good players, and a tighter knit bunch of players with the new manager will have some room to maneuver.
Klopp and Pep disappointed on first showings, esp Klopp who had the new manager buzz and great support as momentum, and he barely pipped us on his second try despite the elephant/mammoth that Wenger had on his shoulders/plate. This is a make or break season, no-one knows this more so than Emery. He’s ballsy, the weaker minded manager might sacrifice the Europa to help his league position, he didn’t do it last season and it bit him, but again he looks like he wants to win something rather than trying to make a bet more safe. Klopp, my suspicion is he knew what he was doing when Liv dropped out of the places and concentrated on catching AFC or another over his next season.
Emery, it’s not just about Ozil. Look what David Luiz and Sokratis did in the Watford match? Mistakes that a top class team 1st choice defenders should not make! When I saw them started in the AV match I was worried, if the same faith was going to happen? Thanks to the attackers, we won. Who can understand the way Emery thinks? Ozil has not played much since last season but when he did well, more than he didn’t, see how genius he was, the way he made passes and positioning, even many pundits and famous ex-players couldn’t believe. He contributed to a goal in the Watford match didn’t he? DON’T DENY FACTS N BLINDLY POUND ON OZIL! Xhanka has not played well lately but I think it’s part of the process, every player has a period of “down time”. We need a strong man in the middle why not rest him for a while and try Chamber in the middle? Guendozi (?) improved but I won’t praise him too much, didn’t you see how he lost possessions and made poor passes in the last few matches? How could Emery see that Cebaroz (?) is a better player than Ozil? Oh, God knows!