Hector Bellerin hopes Arsenal can emulate Unai Emery’s previous teams by defending as a team.
Since joining the club in June, the Spaniard has emphasised the importance of his squad playing with energy and intensity; characteristics he drilled into his Valencia, Sevilla and Paris Saint Germain sides.
The new coach has been hammering home his message during pre-season friendlies against Boreham Wood, Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint Germain, often haranguing his players to ‘press, press, press’ when they are out of possession.
Speaking ahead of Saturday’s 5-1 win over the Parisians – a team who’ve obviously forgotten how to defend since Emery left – Bellerin said he fully buys into the importance of a collective defensive attitude.
“At all the teams that he’s (Unai) been at, it’s all about being very competitive and really tight at the back,” the right-back told journalists in Singapore.
“Strikers must also help to defend, and that can help us a lot because defending is not just for the back four and the goalkeeper.
“It starts from the striker and, hopefully, we can get this solidity and we can compete like his teams have always done.”
The Spaniard also made clear that for all the hard work in pre-season it’ll still take time to get used to his compatriot’s philosophy.
“The important thing at the start is to allow everyone to get in sync with the new coaches and staff,” he said.
“If we do that, everything is going to work and we can challenge for very big things in the future.
“Arsenal are a great club and we need to put the club where we deserve to be. It’s a new era and it’s up to us to make it happen.”
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Cheers to @RYO_Cleverfish for the heads up.
Music to my ears
That’s what we needed from Arsene, more organisation at the back with better defensive midfield in front.
We’ll improve a lot just with that.
Unai Emery won 0 away League games in his last season as Sevilla manager, drawing 9 and losing 10.
So preferably hector,try not to emulate ALL his former sides defending traits :3
Nice spot, TAS _ Gunner. We must simply support the regime and players without making this about how we ready to win everything because Emery is not going to Ben winning us the league and CL in his first season. With the fickle fans we have, all it will take is a defeat or two and the banners will be out and the Emery-fest will be over. I wish we can just be calm, keep expectations realistic and hope for the best instead of making comparisons about styles and which of our managers is more tactical and make sure us… Read more »
Well yeah… he’s definitely not winning the champions league this season.
Never say never
Comments like this from Bellerin makes you realise how rejuvenated the players are post Wenger
Hopefully not like the PSG-Barca second leg!
He isn’t just saying that about the old sides. He also makes a point of saying they are the ones responsible for putting arsenal back where we belong.
Yes, they are. Good to see Hector staying back a bit and defending more – he will need to do a lot of that in the first game of the season. Kolasinac looked OK going forward but that penalty was just the sort of stupid thing we don’t need; hope Nacho follows the defend-first motto. At the risk of kicking the trend, I was a bit worried that our David Luis look-alike switched off a bit just like him in defence and didn’t track runners – we’ve already got Xhaka to do that! Nelson and ESR looking hopeful under Dick… Read more »
You’re correct. Don’t follow the trend. Guendouzi has still a lot to learn and we are still up to old tricks. Did not follow and tack back but you won’t hear criticism from most bc they will be in current “Guendouzi can do no wrong and is the next best thing” mode. Aside from not tracking back, he also lost possession leading to the second goal. He was better (much better) against PSG but of course bearing in mind they are his mates so he knows their play plus it was largely a youth squad. Still great potential. Kolasinac also… Read more »
Better to emulate Atletico, even with predominantly a youth side, they held us.
If anything that would be a better yard stick as to where we measure up currently, not the false example against an even younger PSG squad.