Unai Emery has spent his first month at Arsenal drilling his new players in the tactics he wants them to use in the new season, and the squad seem to have reacted favourably to his tuition. We can only hope that the players learn to follow his instructions to grind out results, and according to Jamie Carragher, Emery will be following in the footsteps of another Spaniard Rafa Benitez. He was far from being Liverpool’s greatest manager, but he certainly made them hard to beat…
“In the past, Arsenal have won games on great football, individual brilliance and having great attacking players,” Carragher said. “What we’ll see Arsenal do more this season is win games tactically. You will look at games and say ‘That’s the manager, he has set up a certain way’.
“He is going to be a very similar manager to a manager I had in Rafa Benitez, going from a team that wasn’t one of the giants in Spain but was still competing and winning trophies.
“He makes it difficult for teams to play against them and will play 4-2-3-1. It will be very similar to Rafa.”
I guess if weare totally honest, we wuld have to agree that our squad doesn’t compare favourably with some of the best teams in the League, but we have seen that Emery can win competitions purely by tactics and discipline. May be we can look forward to a very interesting season after all?
Sam P
I believe Emery is a good tactician, proven by his achievements at Sevilla and PSG
But the games would not be interesting without having an explosive winger with attractive style of play
I think they plan to buy an expensive player in January, because they tried to save money in this transfer window. Someone suited to Emery’s needs
I thought the ‘mustafa winger’ bandwagon had crashed spectacularly with the closing of the transfer market. Looks like you weren’t on board at the time. Pity.
I want to see us maintain our great home record, while improving on the abysmal away one of last season. If we achieve this, we’d be just fine.
?
Let’s wait and see the outcome of the first game
Sam P my thoughts exactly.
he can turn us into a counter attacking machine like sevilla with his 4-2-3-1.
no way he can do worse than wenger.
we only won one away game in 2018 vs huddersfield.
we were really awful last season.
I love this article, a really positive one!
Yes the 4-2-3-1 formation is really good as it accomodates our best players and play them in their right positions bar Aubameyang who will play on the left.
I also think, we wont be lining up the same way in all our games, there will be changes to suit the opposition.
But talking about first game, i would want to have a front four of;
………..Ozil………….
………..Mkhitaryan…..Lacazette………..Aubameyang…..
Dunno who should be our defensive pair, but Torreira, Xhaka looks strong, at least on paper
Ramsey has to start over Xhaka. Ramsey is a goal threat, Xhaka is not. Ramsey has the engine, Xhaka does not. NEither can tackle, but Ramsey makes less mistakes that leads to conceding.
McLovin,
Dont you think Torreira (debutant) and Ramsey will be too light in midfield? plus Ramsey has been injured
Our forward line has all the goal threat, Ramsey can come in IF we are trailing you know….just my thought though….
4-3-3
FW: Aubameyang-Lacazette-Ozil
MF: Torreira-Xhaka-Guendouzi (Xhaka & Guendouzi as Regista)
DF: AMN-Sokratis-Mustafi-Lichsteiner
GK: Cech
Subs: Mkhitaryan, Ramsey, Leno, Mavropanos, Welbeck
As long as we don’t roll over for the big teams like we did last season with Man city, I’ll be happy. How humiliating it was versus City when even Pep had to tell his players to stop scoring to not embarrass us anymore. I wish this club would take defending seriously and stop believing we are Barcelona or something. WE MUST DEFEND WE MUST DEFEND WE MUST DEFEND please Emery, WE MUST DEFEND!!!
Quantic dream,
I dont think we would roll over mate, as you pointed out and as said by Carragher, we will now play tactically meaning we try to balance defence with attack, no more gung-ho approach, so yes we would defend except you want us to park the bus many of us wouldnt want.
On a lighter note, Did Pep actually tell his players to stop scoring against us?
Yes, he did! After making easy work of our defence and scoring the 3rd goal in the 30th minute, you could tell Pep told his players to slow down the pace and just grind out the game. They controlled the pace, the game, the chances, everything. They were sure they had won it and Pep didn’t want to embarrass Wenger anymore than necessary especially at his own home turf (professional courtesy). We were dominated from the 1st minute to the last and it was the very definition of a walk-over. That was the most uncompetitive match I have ever watched as an Arsenal fan. That is why initially I had wanted Diego Simeone. I have seen him shut out Barcelona, Bayern, Real, heck even us at the Emirates while 1 man down. They say he plays anti-football but that is exactly the kind of defending that puts away big teams. When Diego Simeone says you shall not score, you don’t score. However, I am still happy with Emery and hope he will solidify our defence.
That happens on its own, teams taking their foot off the gas or it could be other side acting more desperately. Another reason it happens is to slow the tempo, take the heat out of the game. If what you said was true then Pep’s teams would ease up on most teams, this is not the case Pep loves to humiliate teams he’s done it in every league he went. You think they would feel bad about setting a scoring record against us?. The game may have eased up on their part but its not for the reasons you said.
Arsenal under Wenger has a poor record against the top teams.This is because his rivals know
he plays in only ne style: kamikaze attack.I t had happened the last 10 to 15 years .
His record against rf is laughable. In the modern game its unheard of a so called top team conceding 8 goals.
Hopefully under the new manager Arsenal will prove to be of stener stuff and be harder to score.I am hopeful after watching the preseason games.
It is a bit stupid when you think about it, we gave every team over ten seasons to figure out what tactics to use best against us. Think about it, the tactics that worked ten years ago could still work all those years later. The type of players signed didn’t change enough so to render the tactics useless. I will say though, Arsene did try and come round, the FA cups we saw something different. We saw man to man marking, we were more open to counter attack ..a little less gung ho. We got the handle on Che finally, we started to almost get a handle on utd. But we lost our attacking flair, City and Pool were able to rip us a new one. He did try to come round, even tried targeting some tougher players, but all too late.
@ wolfgang arsenal under wenger has a better head to head record against every team in English football bar man u, u guys should stop fabricating lies against the best manager in our entire history,
All hail Emery!!….the tactical beast!!!!…..we finally have our own tactician…….we were surely due for one…even pep knows how tactical Emery can be..don’t be fooled by the fact that he has never beaten pep…..i’m sure that would end this sunday….I look at Emery and I see a man with so much passion..a man who is hungry to fight and prove a point to his doubters that said he had major stars in PSG but couldn’t succeed……underrate Emery at your peril….underrate our transfer business at your peril………but one thing is for sure Emery is going to win us the premier league this season…. Remember when I said this…..arsenal will be the surprise package this season….since no one is expecting anything from us it would give Emery the freedom to create magic….you would all be shocked by our excellent performances come this season!!!!!!!
I killed Kenny! …and then I shot his deputy!
does this chiza has shame @ll, this is social media mehnnn!!! u r suppose to be hiding in the bush now, yet u r still vomiting rubbish here, which shirt number did arsenal Gave dembele? How many top managers has emry beaten before to Gave him the tactical genius tag? How many league titles did he win in Spain? Make Sam aladyce d coach of psg tomorrow he will win titles,I really hope emry will do well but he’s never in the class of arsene wenger!
@Uchman – Would you take Big Sam over Emery? I bet you wont, so don’t look to make unnecessary arguments. Besides, this is the kind of negativity and lack of faith that you are displaying needs to stop in the Arsenal fan group. Plus, there’s always a first for everything, maybe Emery will finally get his first win against Pep.
Success of Emry will depend on the mental setting of the players.If they play as he wants,we will win
Emery is a good coach but weak mentality that has been infused in this squad for more than a decade will take to clean. Positional freedom will be a rare commodity now except maybe for ozil, less caught up the field, more robbing opponent high up the field.
Very important to understand that emery will make mistakes, every tactical coach do it once in a while since they change tactics regularly unlike some coach, pep vs liverpool and poch also had games when his risky tactics didn’t pay off. Remember most big coach struggled in their 1st season in epl, the likes of conte or mourinho are rare exceptions.
wenger met a team that finished 12th position in 1995, he inherited a team that was on 17th position by September of 1996, yet he took them to league title in his first full season, we should stop making excuses, the team he inherited was not a terrible team, the distractions of Sanchez and ozil contract issues affected the dressing room which in turn affected the performance on the pitch, remember Chelsea finished in 10 before konte took them to the title,i hope emery will utilize the enormous talents in our team to achieve results