All season it looks like Arsenal simply look all at sea in the first half of every game, but after Emery’s half-time talk and a couple of changes they improve dramatically as the game goes on. Emery is very aware of this problem. “I think we need to improve a lot.” he said on Arsenal.com. “I think we have to continue doing a lot of the things to get better. Our demands need to be very high. The supporters can enjoy it with us but also we’re speaking with our reality every day. We need to improve because for example the match against Fulham was a very good result and a very good game for 90 minutes. But in the first 45 minutes I thought we needed to do better.
“If we are remembering the last match at the Emirates [against Watford], we won but not playing like we want, with the control against the opposition. For me now, the most important thing is not to rush. The next game against Leicester is very big, very difficult. Leicester are a very good team and play with a clear identity under Claude Puel. They are very competitive, have very good players and we need every single player, and our mentality together to be stronger than in the last match.”
Leicester are comfortably mid-table, but with recent defeats to Bournemouth and Everton they are hardly world-beaters, and there wins against Newcastle and Huddersfield are not anything to write home about, so we should be feeling pretty confident going into the match, but Emery knows that we have been winning without playing well and that needs to change. “We need to continue working calmly in our bodies and our mentality.” he continued. “Our target now is the same as in the first matches. The first two matches we lost, against Manchester City and Chelsea. But after six matches winning in the Premier League, it hasn’t changed. [We need] this calm because we [beat] a lot of opposition teams with very [poor] performances. We need to stay with the best teams in the Premier League. To stay with them, we need to do better and get better at different things.”
This is a great chance to get our tenth win in a row in front of our own fans, but Emery is right, we really need to start playing well right from the start or one day we are going to get punished.
Darren N