Ahead of Arsenal’s opening League game against the Champions Man City, Unai Emery has been talking about his aims to get the Gunners back into a position where they play with organization in defence, and confidence and aggressiveness going forward, but all the time playing as one unit and transmitting their passion to the fans.
The Spaniards command of English may not be perfect yet, but he certainly knows how to get his point across. This is what he told Sky Sports: “Our style with the ball is to be protagonists, to do things with combinations, to control the match with the positioning of the ball. And then when we have the space, to be aggressive going forward.
“Defensively: first it is to be organised, recover the ball quickly. But in these two moments in the match we need to work. To say it here is easier than doing it on the pitch. We also need time, but now I am happy because I think the players are improving.
“We need two things: quality players, which we have, and then organisation. Together I think we can improve, to win in our way. I repeat: organised, then play.”
“When we are thinking in an attacking moment, I want the goalkeeper thinking for that, he is the first. The same when we are thinking defensively, I want our strikers to be thinking: ‘We need to protect the goalkeepers’. I want those two moments to feel the same for all players.
“Each player has this quality, this characteristic to help the team as a collective. For me, that is very important.”
“It’s clear, the aim for the club is to arrive as champions, play for titles. But for me, I want to enjoy the way [we do it].
“I want the players and supporters to feel that together, and also enjoy each match, each moment in our stadium, and in this way the team transmits to the supporters the passion.”
“Success is to improve, grow up, build one team with personality, and then I want to win. I want to do it one way with this personality, enjoying with our supporters. We are looking in this way, one team with a passion, with a quality, organised, and in this way we are near to winning in the future.”
Obviously Emery thinks the team is far from being the finished product right now, but he has only had a couple of months to prepare and without all of our players. I am sure we will have to be patient while the new arrivals get integrated into the team, but if us, as fans, can see the squad trying their hardest to win, whoever our opponents, then that will give us the hope that we can succeed when eveything comes together in the future.
Arsenal need to be organized and passionate, and the fans need to be patient and forgiving, at least for the first six months….
Sam P
I think we can pull a rabbit out the hat. That will be stunning, but no pressure we in a rebuilding phase not expecting miracles just yet.
Emery’s principle is similar to Barcelona’s
The goalkeeper and the defenders are the first attackers, whereas the forwards are the first defenders. Retrieve the ball as soon as possible, if possible under ten seconds
His high pressing game is very important to force the opponents to make mistakes, but all outfield players (especially the attackers) must be willing to do it. The first EPL game would show Emery which players that are not up to this strategy and have to be benched
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Just seen a piece on sky saying AMN will prob play left back ..I would love to see him play in that midfield role ,I just think he could really shine and show us what he is capable of ,but for now I’m happy he’s going to be in the side for a while .for me that midfield still looks weak with xhaka ,Ramsey and elneny filling the gaps
He will be left back as both Monreal and Kalasinac are out.
why not let Liechsteiner player there ?
If just for this City Game
I think he will be at right back and Bellerin on bench.
I hope so!
No one doubts we will improve, however can we improve more than city and Liverpool I doubt it
Can we close the gap on spuds and Utd maybe but overtake them again I doubt it
Then there’s Chelsea again I doubt it
Which means we are sixth again and waiting for the next big false rumours like Lamar, Dembele
If emery plays AMN, Torreira, Rowe, Movo and puts faith in them it will be a positive step, however using Sokratis, Xhaka and mustafi worries me that we have not moved on
John0711, come on how about a bit of optimism; don’t be beaten before a ball is kicked. The Trinity (Sven, Raul and Unai) have brought in players to address the deficiencies in the team. OK they might not be the “head line grabbers” that many fans want, but Emery has stated he is happy with them. Arsenal have a coach now who will address defense and instill discipline and has a proven record of competing against the best in Spain with limited resources at both valencia and Sevilla.
Win lose or draw hopefully Arsenal will leave everything on the pitch this season and that is what reasonable supporters expect. All we have to do is maintain home form and improve the previously appalling away record. COYG.
A psychlogical boost against city would be perfect for Emry.
I see Arsenal finishing sixth or seventh.
We have neither the depth or the quality to challenge those above us.
For me, the whole point of signing players is to improve but none of the players Emery has signed improves Arsenal.
I would sincerely love to be wrong but I see Arsenal struggling as badly as we did under Wenger last season, especially as the team adapt to a new philosophy and tactics.
I was hoping for big name signings to boost the confidence of the team and the fans instead we get players that no one else wanted – mid level players and players coming to the end of their careers.
This is Arsenal moving backwards…
Sorry I have to disagree with your assessment. Arsenal has a hard headed, committed, knowledgeable and enthusiastic coach and the players brought in address known deficiencies in the squad, including a specialist DM. “Mid level” – all players, except for Guendouzi and the youth projects are full internationals.
Guardiola’s team came to the capital last week and wiped chelski aside, they can wipe spurs aside and the hammers too, its imperative the don’t turn us over on our ground – we are not a defensive outfit so it will likely be all out attack from the get go. aguero is in form as is lacazette. if they can score we will too (we can reply to anything they throw at us) because there are goals in their team and the same is said of ours.
Can New Arsenal give a good account of itself? were at home so i see no reason why we won’t. well we need to keep them on their toes which is precisely what we’re about – we will score-draw our first to games and if we can manage it we can look at our team as shaping up really well. i want to see which arsenal turns up on Sunday – the arsenal i know plays the beautiful game and does so with no fear.
Let’s face the fact we could not have had a harder start ( unless it was at the Etihad Stadium of course).City sure a very good side with huge strength in depth so we are coming up against a team who will expect to beat us and carry on where they left off last season.
We will soon see how tactically we are different to last season.They murdered us at the Emirates just days after humiliating us at Wembley so Sunday’s game will give us the opportunity to witness how Emery has shaped the side.Lets not forget that we have some very good players of our own and can cause any team trouble on our day.If we are defensively more stable and tactically more astute than the previous few seasons (by that I mean TWELVE) then we can certainly give them a game.Whether this game has come too early for us we shall see on Sunday but a good solid performance is vital.
City will be F***ING tough.
I’m more worried about our defense keeping out Aguero, De Brunye, Sterling, Mahrez, Sane than our attack
Particularly centre backs and LB
Koscielny, Monreal, Kolsanic are all out
I’m not keen on Niles as LB but we don’t have much choice unfortunately
It will take a long to change the discipline in our team. It went constantly down the drain for 3-4 years, and there is no way Emery or anyone else in the world is able to change that in a few weeks.
It will take time, and some players may not be up to it, but that will show in a few months. Till then, I hope for the best, and to begin with, I just hope, we won’t start with 2 big losses.
Enough with all these negativities jhr, It’s not like the players are babies, they knew they could play anyhow they liked cos the coach would always pick them, irrespective of their performance, this time around, this is a different issue, there’s so much competition now(for almost, if not all positions), so any player that wants to get in the good books of the new coach will do what he wants RIGHT AWAY
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Just expect passion and hard work from the team at this time; rest will follow.
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Our opening game is certainly not one for testing new tactics… I’d rather we won playing anti-football than try to match city toe to toe and get wiped out…
The next couple of windows coming up that is when the hard work really begins, Emery didn’t create this team, I hope the minority realize this when we have our difficult spells. Only so much you can do with someone else’s team, and he wasn’t afforded the money to make any drastic changes.
Even if you’re someone who rates allot of the team very highly, higher than where we end up say, you need to realize its not just about the quality, he demands, or wants certain types of player. So if he hasn’t got enough of his certain types?, well, you know where I’m going with it.
I just hope we have money for the Jan window like last season, it’d be a shocker if they tried to give Emery less than what Wenger got out of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised, if Emery could work with a lower budget and reach top four we know they’d be over the moon with it. We only start spending more, ironically, when we lost our position, it was when we had a good base to build upon then is when they should’ve acted.
We have two more weeks like this on our fixture schedule. I went through Cities who only have one week where they face 2 of the big six back to back. Utd’s too, they only have one. Liverpool either had one or two, I think its two. Not only do we get more double headers like this, but we get it bang at the start of the season. It should be easy to make a fixture schedule fair, completely fair like. TV companies shouldn’t have a say at all. Those TV execs are followers themselves, maybe even a fanatic or two.
Some people don’t think small things like this make any difference, and don’t pay any attention to bad refereeing or luck in any sense. Like every wise person will tell you, its in the details. Its not an early excuse for anything, I just would prefer if it wasn’t us and instead the title winners got three head to heads with one of them at the beginning.
Our opening game is certainly not one for testing new tactics… I’d rather we won playing anti-football than try to match city toe to toe and get wiped out…
And how do ylku think we can do that?
Playing anti football, that’s how… All this “protagonist” or whatever that Emery always talks about sounds like some gung ho, all guns blazing, kamikaze football… Yeah, people won’t like it if we win ugly but we have to be able to win ugly against teams that we know we do not have enough quality to handle.
manure (UTD) does it and people just get over it…