Unai Emery says his first task when taking over at Arsenal was to make the team more competitive after a dismal final season away from home under Arsene Wenger.
The Gunners endured a miserable time on the road, which was in stark contrast to the home form which was second only to eventual champions Man City.
The Spaniard was asked ahead of our game against Crystal Palace what way he assessed the squad when he took over and what he needed to prioritise.
“I think the first thing we spoke about when I arrived here was to improve our competitiveness, both individually and collectively as a team,” he told the official website.
“We are doing that. Step by step, I think the team is more competitive and we are not giving the opposition a lot of chances to score easy goals.
At the moment, we are conceding a lot more than we want to but in the last matches, we are learning to control games better, little by little.
“Also, we are not losing. The most important thing is that these players and this team, like over the last few years, have this combination of quality and competitiveness.
“Then we can finish with a lot of players in the opposition box. This is the balance between being more competitive and not losing our identity and style.
“We also need to keep that identity in this team.”
Emery’s side will make it 12 wins out of 12 if they can take all three points at Selhurst Park on Sunday, a superb run of form which has seen them climb to the table to within two points of leaders Man City and Liverpool.
Hmm.. waiting for Pedant to post something. looks like i beat him to it. oh well. Also, love this emery chap.
It just…it doesn’t feel the same, sorry.
This is just the beginning, and so far we’ve got the results, barring one against a team that is currently superior to us, and another where we weren’t able to convert our chances. We rode our luck a few times, but we hung in there and saw certain games through. It certainly looks like younger players, with a change in coaching and a more instructive style are flourishing. On the whole the team certainly looks more combative. Our real tests will be against the rest of the so-called top 6, especially away. I don’t want to compare performances against last… Read more »
That Project 24 Points is not coming on badly, I suppose.
A win at Selhurst Park should do it!
This certainly is an enjoyable run of results, feeling really positive about our top 4 chances now… not allowing myself to think any higher despite the temptation to get carried away.
Palace is a potential banana skin, but beyond that I’m really looking forward to the Liverpool game. As Gooner1981 says the top 6 teams are the test. The first two were write-offs to some degree but after 16 odd competitive games I think we can expect something more organised & practiced against Liverpool.
So impressed with this guy’s deep understanding of the game and his clear experience managing hundreds of games and so many different teams. Makes you realise what a mistake Arteta/Vieira would have been at this stage of their managing careers.
Even as the biggest Vieira fan, completely agree! Our ambitions as a club demand we always have an experienced manager
I really start to like him.
sry for offtopic but i am desperately looking for a stream of the under 23 gainst swansea right now, can anybody help?
He’s smart.
Don’t reinvent the wheel.
Wenger was like a genius but flawed professor who invented a super high performance engine but somehow could not make it work without stuttering, always missing a piece here and there and can’t figure out how to properly tweak it.
Emery is like the genius engineer who comes in and tweaks what is already there to make it perform.
Now he’s got that engine purring again like what Wenger had wanted.
But the question now is to sustain the performance and then meet higher challenges.
So far so good.
I am positively surprised by the continuity between Wenger and Emery. Essentially, we needed somebody new to say the same things in a different way, but the end result on the pitch feels right. I guess the issue was simply that Arsene had exhausted all the ways he knew how to motivate the team.
Praised be wenger for all he brought us, but I never expected emery to turn that “bottom less belief & trust is everything” sickness that was instilled over the last decade around this quickly. Emery has very high but equally reasonable and straight forward expectations. He doesnt think he is more intelligent than the rest of the football world, that he has a more respectable agenda than his colleagues., he believes he as well as players need to work harder, be more focused and determined than their opponents. Super impressive. Gamestyle Actually reminds me a bit of the hight of… Read more »
is so funny and disappointing to know that our past two goalkeepers are no1 in two of the biggest clubs in Italy and world football…..Sczesny(juventus) Ospina (Napoli)
It says alot…we had great goalkeepers but I don’t know why they failed over here in Arsenal…..but thankfully we still have two great goalkeepers with us
Sczesny didn’t fail us and after a great season in Italy was allowed to leave which I’ve never understood. Ospina was never good enough to be a No 1. He lacks height and presence and is error prone. However I am very satisfied with the 2 we have
Talking about ospina’s height and presence.. I’m sure it takes more than that to be the number one goalkeeper for Colombia and napoli and also to have played for arsenal…there’s something special about Ospina to have made him last for so long… So don’t come up with those weak excuses
Name another current Colombian keeper without googling it ?
Sczesny was bad of attitude and indiscipline that’s why Arsene benched him. Don’t judge Ospina because of his height, he is quick response, he was play bad last season because lack of defensive from the defender and midfielder
Ospina is neither Napoli’s no.1 (he’s out with a broken arm) nor a great goalkeeper…..if he was a great goalkeeper Arsenal wouldn’t have spent 2 summers failing to sell him.
I do agree with your last point. Very happy with current keepers.
Mission accomplished so far, good sir!!!
Keep the good times coming 🙂
If you look at how other big clubs have handled transition from legend managers to new managers they generally don’t go well. I’ll give him an extra shout for what’s he’s done in the shadow of Wenger.
Didn’t realize you liked Whiskey? Any favorites? Emery’s a breath of fresh air.