What Arsenal must get right to beat Aston Villa

Arsenal has a great opportunity of moving up the table tomorrow against Aston Villa at the Emirates but they simply have to get the basics right.

Villa are no walkovers, they will be competitive and with the likes of Jack Grealish and John McGinn in their side they do pose a significant threat.

Complacency

Arsenal cannot be complacent, Norwich City against Man City and Sheffield United at Everton just today has already shown that the promoted teams must not be underestimated. It took Tottenham until the last 15 minutes or so to break Villa down on the opening day of the season and Dean Smith’s men will be organised, fully briefed and disciplined.

Errors

Starting to sound like a broken record now but the Arsenal defence cannot make any more errors, well, errors that lead to goals, enough is enough and the likes of Luiz, Sokratis, Leno and Xhaka need to put in a mistake-free game.

Control

Yup, broken record time again but it has to be said, he who controls the midfield wins the game, simple as that. Arsenal lost control of the midfield in the second half against Watford last week and look what happened. It is imperative that Arsenal control the middle of the park, no more to say on that.

Clinical

Villa will defend in numbers and chances may not come that often, especially if they get twos sets of four behind the ball and when openings come Arsenal have to take them, they need to put Villa to the sword and the only way that can happen is by being clinical.

Plan B

Unai Emery must have a valid plan B, too often the players get shaken up and do not know how to respond. You cannot keep plugging away with the same strategy if it is not working and the coach has to be ready to change things at the appropriate time.

That is it, simple really but it is the simple stuff that Arsenal have not been getting right that has cost them.

27 Comments

  1. Emery is busy with Plan A, A1, A2…A99 so he hadn’t time for Plan B. I dread what the scorelines will be when we go to Etihad. It was absolute carnage there this evening.
    I know it’s hopeless to hope, but I really hope he atleast got a First XI in mind, not to mention a formation that is clearly communicated to his players.

  2. OT: Imagine a Watford team that is getting 31 shots against arsenal, piped 8 by city. now remember City played them with Fernandinho as a CB. That tells me our first problem is the way we setup. our midfielders are just too lazy and this is Emery. We could go and draw against City tomorrow and some fans will still be saying ‘give him til…’ Til when I ask? Til he takes us to 10th position Abi? Emery is just too average to carry us to glory.

      1. Declan you can see I didn’t even know we are 10th cos I lost all the zeal because of Emery. It’s not the players trust me if Mourinho gets this team he will do something better with them. That doesn’t mean I want him here though. Emery isn’t just instructing the boy’s rightly. We are playing Watford and we are 2:1 up and TORREIRA is in the opposition box trying to score, instead of shielding our defence. what a way to play football. Everyone keeps saying the defence is the problem but it’s not its Emery, What arsenal play nowadays is what we call ‘kick and follow’ in my sub region… All the excitement is gone and it’s just 5 games in. Ah.

    1. The problem is we don’t have good system in training and strategy since fifteen years ago

      Man City players created most of their assists from crosses. Their midfielders do not focus solely on ball possession, but also swapping roles with the wide players to create crosses

      This is better than waiting for a perfect through ball, as what our no 10s like to do. That’s why Man City’s and Liverpool’s 4-3-3s are highly effective, because they don’t waste their time

      1. The bottom line again is that Arsenal coach need to be tactically astute to win tomorrow’s game. This is the kind of game that can determine a lot how the season will pan out for Arsenal. U.Emery should have no excuse tomorrow should he fail to win. His team for once should dominate from start to finish. The fans are tired of waiting to see Arsenal’s best match this season.

        1. To see Arsenal’s best match we first need to see Arsenal’s best team. As Emery has no idea what that is you can see why we’re not yet motoring. Maybe vs Villa?

  3. Arsenal really needs to improve. Man city just destroyed Watford 8:0, same watford that had over 30 shots against us and nearly won us.

    I hope Arsenal can improve so we don’t get embarrassed against the likes of man city at Etihad

  4. It is impossible for us to lose to Aston Villa at home tomorrow. Even a draw will be highly unacceptable.
    I see a comfortable win tomorrow.

  5. Problem is not with players. They have been ruined at Arsenal by imposing ugly tactics and philosophy by the manager..They are learning these monkey movements just after being trained under Emery. Probably they might not have learned this kind of football techniques anywhere else. Killing the ability of players like Pepe and Ozil. Ozil was performing well under Wenger, started declining under Emery and benched or discarded most often. Until Emery change his game philosophy, dont expect much from these players except Auba and Laca. They are just learning Emery tactics and Emery keeps on experimenting tactics…this emerrygo is going to be endless until Emery is sacked…Even Jose Morinho got sacked multiple times. Then why not this clueless monkey?

      1. Admin I guess spending nearly 200 million is not enough to defend 2 goals lead against Watford. Good radiance!!!!!!

  6. We’ve scored 8 in 5 matches and City just did it against one team. Just wow.

    The quality gap between the managers is unreal.

      1. You keep bringing up this “£1 billion” thing like that’s all you’ve got for a healthy reply, last I checked Klopp didn’t spend that amount before his defence became strong. Hope you don’t compare his team’s style of play to yours one of these days cos virtually every arsenal fan who eagerly await the return of the glory days won’t mind the club spending that amount and winning back to back EPL titles plus other domestic trophies, even you will. It’s better this team and her manager learn how to make life easy for themselves and their fans by making decisions that will leave a lasting legacy that will be talked about for years to come.

  7. The admin on this site should post those stats comparing Emery first 43 games to Wenger’s last 43. Very interesting if they are true.

    1. Why? Those stats are meaningless, you caannot compare one set of results with another without the proper context, Wenger built that team, Emery inherited it, totally unfair to compare.

  8. If we ditch that playing out the back nonsense and instead play a high line, we should overcome this new and puzzling problem where the ball just won’t come out of our own half especially after goal kicks. Am sick of seeing opposition players camping outside our box licking their lips just waiting for free goals.

  9. I don’t understand why Emery goes with Xhaka as the deepest midfielder in front of back 4 and is even talking about moving torreira in a more attacking role. It’s very clear it should be opposite. In fact Xhaka’s long range shooting abilities would be better used if he was played in more attacking position. Also farther away from the Arsenal penalty box he is the better for Arsenal. Torreira should be the deepest DM. His short passes are very good and also can fend off pressure better than Xhaka. Guendouzi is better in that regard than Xhaka as well. WTF is Emery thinking? He’s building his team around Xhaka basically. Even then he should never play Xhaka without Torreira. And with the only saving grace being his distribution, having someone like ozil/ceballos in front and Luiz at the back just overkill. Look how Mancity plays with Debryne. More often than not the ball reaches him and then he dictates and provides those assists. YOU DON’T NEED 4 PLAYMAKERS IN ONE TEAM. Emery just makes it hard for himself with such outlandish team selection. I just hope he just brings some balance to the team that he keeps repeating in every interview.

    1. Seriously it’s not sweet money at all! Any way talking about arsenal, it’s the only club in the premier league that has its own certain team list which they come into the game well convinced they are going to lose and they dare not even put a fight.
      1.Liverpool
      2.Man.united
      3.Man.city
      When will you ever lay your hands on the ? trophy. Even till now Arsenal still targets top four finish yet no significant signs they can even do something in the champions league! Any way I’m married to arsenal “in sickness and in health.”

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