Unai Emery says his first four months at Arsenal have been very enjoyable and he’s pleased by the progress of his squad of whom he says he’s demanding a great deal.
After defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea, the Gunners have put together a solid six-game winning streak across three competitions. While it’s obvious that we’re far from perfect, most notably at the back where we still look nervous with the ball and goals have been conceded all too regularly, the Spaniard says the right foundations are in place to make further improvements.
Facing the media ahead of Saturday’s match with Watford, Emery said: “I am enjoying it because I love my work and when I can explain my work with the players, they are responding as I want and also with every match with a good result, like the last matches, I am happy.
“For me, it’s a very good experience at the moment. There are still many matches, many days and I hope many years for continuing to improve here with my experience and my knowledge. But now, at the moment, I think the club is giving me a lot of positive things.
“I am working every day with the players with a very big commitment and my demands are very great, very big and also my challenge here too. I want to share with the players and with the club also, my challenge to learn and to improve together.”
On the Gunners winning streak and how it could boost the confidence of his players, he added: “Each match gives us the opportunity to take more confidence. We are winning, I think the confidence is the best on our individual players and also on our collective work.
“But every match is one challenge to show and to give, to find our best moment and best performance. I think each player is thinking well, but also we need more.”
The only negative for Unai, is the British weather. Even for a man raised in the wet surroundings of northern Spain, he says the rain is a bit much on this side of the Channel.
“I was born in the north of Spain, with the rain,” he said. “Then I lived a lot in Spain, with the sun. I love the sun a lot. But also, we need the rain. Maybe if rained less, it’d be better.”
We’re pretty sure this has been the hottest and driest summer since the mid-seventies…sp pray for Unai when winter arrives.
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane
Very wet Spanish air stewardesses then!
Nice
The rain in Spain falls mainly in the north. It’s dry as hell in central Spain!
He hasn’t done anything fundamentally different from what Wenger was doing last season. Much of it is dictated by the assets he has in hand. Where he has differed is in attention to details, doing what we were attempting to do last season but doing it better and sustaining the press. Plus he is not shy of intervention during a match where Wenger afforded too much free interpretation which was his issue being mired in his own philosophical dogma. I think we are starting to see something take fruit for Emery with the players being able to find each other… Read more »
Hilarious the way you say ‘He hasn’t done anything fundamentally different from what Wenger was doing last season’……& then you list the things he has done that are different fron Arsene….and they are fundamentally different. There’s hardly any point defeating your points any more when you do it yourself. Taking all the fun out of it for the rest of us – shame on you!
Touché
thats why he added the qualifier “fundamentally”
Good on him. He seems like the sort of guy we will all grow to love. He’s not a cunt, he’s not one of these big time charlies that wants to bankrupt the club, he’s a grafter, and a successful one too in his career so far. I really want it to work for him, keep it up Unai!
Seems to me that there is an awful lot that the ‘Wenger’ players need to unlearn before they can expect to start learning Emery’s new way. It’s going to take at least a year just for the unlearning so they all the bad habits are out of their systems.
Still surprises me how many go on about the lack of improvement… Give Emery a chance!!
The guy has an immense job really. Taking over from an institution like Wenger, with his extreme power within the club, requires a cultural change not just an implementation of style. It takes everyone to be on the same page from the CEO on down. Hopefully Gazidis’ moving to Milan will turn out to be just a small bump in the road, more positive than negative, and Emery/new team can go about their business. I wish him all the luck in the world, and so far, I think he has been playing the hand he was dealt pretty well. COYG!
I think it’s already clear that what will limit how much we improve this year will be the quality of our players, not the quality of our new coach. Love how Emery’s managed everything so far, on and off the pitch. Keep grinding out these results Coach. Nothing else matters right now. The other thing the club has to think about is this 2-year contract buainess. If you give a coach a 2-year project don’t be surprised if he’s cool with the club buying reliable senior players, instead of the exciting young stars of the future we all love to… Read more »
Watford have been playing well, so far this season.
We all knew that any points from the first two league matches were a bonus. Almost all the subsequent matches we were expected to win.
The match against Watford will be a good test to see, if we are building a strong foundation or still papering over cracks.