Patience: not just one of the great tracks on Lloyd Cole and the Commotions 1984 debut LP Rattlesnakes.
It’s a commodity much sought after by football managers in an era when it’s often in short supply, and Unai Emery has appealed for a delivery of it to be made to North London as he looks to restore Arsenal to the kind of stature we’re all hoping to see in the coming years.
The Gunners have had a traumatic week, losing to Crystal Palace and Wolves, and a top four finish is now out of our hands.
However, the manager knows the job he has will take time, and has appealed to be given that as some pressure mounts.
“We want to get with this club to the point where we are the best club in England and the world,” he said.
“But it is a long process. Sometimes, like today, we need to talk about patience.
“We want to play in the Champions League but also we know our process needs to be with patience because there are another five very strong teams with very good players and very big performances.
“The Premier League is the most difficult championship in all the world. There is not another country with this difficulty to take the top four places and play in the Champions League.
“Maybe now in Spain, they have something similar – Valencia are struggling for the top four also.
“But here the biggest teams in the world play in one championship.”
The importance of Champions League football as part of that rebuilding process is obvious, but Emery refused to discuss the impact it might have on recruitment this summer, preferring to keep focus on tomorrow’s game against Leicester.
“Each moment we can speak about the past and the future,” he said.
“In each moment we can speak about our focus. Our only one way is to speak about the present and our focus is on Sunday.”
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Fair call. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Give the man another two seasons at least. He deserves that after decent first season. UCL or no UCL. Trophy or no trophy.
Fans are not unhappy because we are not the best club in the world. They are unhappy because they have seen very little or no progress as compared to last season.
If Rafa Benitez, with so little money to spend and with no big name defenders at his disposal, can coach his defenders to concede less goals than us this season, then fans surely have a point to be disappointed with you Unai.
Emery has done a great job this season. Comparing him to Benitez is pointless as Newcastle often sit with 11 players behind the ball and offer nothing going forward, and Benitez has been with Newcastle for over 3 years now slowly building a squad he wants (with limited funds). We have (slightly) improved away from home and we have a semi final to play where we have a great chance of going to a European final. Also if someone said to me at the beginning of the season we would be one point off 4th with three games to play… Read more »
Silly comparison, when Newcastle set up not to get beat every week.
If you want to use Newcastle as your template, you should prepare to sit back the whole season and defend like a team facing relegation
13 points off the top 4 last season. 1 point off the top 4 with 3 games left this season, despite the standard being higher at the top in England than for many years. (clear proof is in the English teams performances in the CL)
Like Emery or not, that cannot be simply brushed off as ‘very little or no progress’.
Agreed, but the improvement is marginal thus far (Emery could impress a lot in his final set of games, mind you!) — we’re at 66 points, and finished with 63 last year, 75 the year before (which is the most we can get this year if we manage three wins), which was good for fifth place. A few weeks ago it looked like we might be able to return to the 80s (ah, what a dream — but I mean in points!) until we bungled winnable games against rest-of-the-table teams. Everyone seems content to accept the most recent loss because… Read more »
But as you say…75 to 63 points. To say 66 is only marginally better than 63 is true but it is assuming Arsène’s would have been able to halt a further slide….which to me would simply not have happened.
AW’s last season (and more) was an unmitigated disaster, so much so that it removed him from office. The blame fell squarely on him for putting up such poor results. Emery deserves praise for stopping the decline, but he’s got a long way to go yet before we can praise him for significant improvement. Marginal improvement, yes, for sure, and we’re all happy to see more effort and better performances, but he’s got a lot of work to do.
The 13 points you are talking about were given for free by Man U and Spurs this year. We have to support Emery but there is frankly no progress if he doesn’t get CL. For example, the players are not even more motivated than last year and they were given a new manager and coaching team.
It’s just a shame to reflect that if we had played better against Everton, Palace, and Wolves, we’d be in the mid-70s in points, well above Sp*rs in third spot, and a lock for the top four. Those games are looking truly haunting now …
We also dropped points to BHA, Soton(away), West Ham.
That was 8 points at very least.
Torreria I might remind you conspired to give away or was robbed off the ball 3 times in those matches, all leading to goals against.
I don’t see the value in isolating a player on whom to heap blame for a team’s performance; they are a team. Mistakes happen, but if the team is in control of the game, those mistakes don’t necessarily end in disaster. I generally enjoy your posts, even if I can’t read all 30 pages of them at one sitting, but I’ve always found it odd that you pick on some players relentlessly and defend others despite everything.
As soon as I saw the matches you mention santori, I knew the swipe at old Torri was in motion. Maybe that guy was right! Maybe you are mustafi and if you are…please stop mustafi-ing I.e sliding all the time etc
Seriously, stfu with your pathetic copy&paste agendas. You sound like an imbecile.
What big name defenders do we have?
Papastathopoulos – 16 letters!
Haha, this made me laugh more than West Ham beating the Spuds today!
As others have mentioned, Newcastle isn’t a good example, they play defensively as a whole and that hurts then going forward. That’s why we have 20 odd more points and scored almost double their goals. Makes more sense to compare us with the rest of the top 6.
If we played like Newcastle, I for one would not renew my season ticket.
Its about getting the right balance, Newcastle in some games do not worry about going forward…. imagine how we would be if Arsenal done this.
absolutely fine with him at the helm for one more season with an option for another year, but i don’t think he merits another two automatically at this point in time. if we end up fifth or sixth and lose against valencia, wouldn’t that be pretty much a disaster? these last few games really will define our season. fail to make the cl, it would be such a fuck up if you go back to after the newcastle game, where 3rd looked quite possible. euro league glory plus maybe 4th and that pill of ending behind spurs again will be… Read more »
Even the rivalry doesn’t motivate our players anymore.
Our new manager certainly deserves a few more seasons, because he is a master tactician. And he coaches the players much betterer than the previous guy did, just look at, well, how Iwobi’s shooting has come on. And he’s a master of the defensive arts and we never (well almost never, only occasionally, and especially away from home and sometimes at corners and free kicks), concede from set pieces. So he’s really getting the best out of Steve Bould in that respect which he said he would when he wowed the board. And there’s none of this sitting down and… Read more »
We need to keep our sense of humour, for sure. 🙂
Sarcasm much?
Give Emery, or any world class manager 20 years at Arsenal, we are still not going to win the league, unless the board starts providing the funding to compete with the bigger clubs. We need to pump money and bring in quality players that can win us games. Abu and Laca are quality, but we need more players like them.
” … where we are the best club in England and the world”
As long as he’s got an actual, feasible, plan that doesn’t involve tin-foil hats, then I’m on board.
Best club in North London would do it for me for now.
We’re already that though unless that’s what you meant…
Let’s be honest we aren’t.
Form is temporary.
Punchinella goes away, so does Tottenham.
He needs money to be the best club. And I can’t see see him getting anywhere near enough.
Hence I can’t see us being other than 5th or 6th in the PL for the next few years, give or take.
As it stands, the difference between top 3 and us is just 4 points. Is it so inconcievable that we’d be there given a slightly better season? Nope. So, yeah, have a little patience and trust the man to improve Arsenal.
as this season showed, making the top 4 is always possible. we could have even ended up 3rd. becoming the best club in england let slone the world, i can’t see it either, at all
5th or 6th is pessimistic. Getting number 1 can be done in a freak season, as Leicester proved, despite all the money floating around. Maintaining number 1 is unlikely as long as the FA/UEFA refuse to clamp down on City’s spending.
I hope we do a lot better but: – City spend masses – Liverpool have a great team and late stage CL revenue – United have the potential to spend masses – Sp*rs have 150m in the summer to spend according to my Sp*rs supporting friend – Chelsea are backed by a billionaire – We won’t spend much We could get to 3rd or fourth possibly (Leicester were 1 in 5000 to win the league at the start of their season, it won’t happen again) but review the evidence above and decide if being the best team in the PL… Read more »
Money isn’t everything. United have thrown money at that team and done nothing. We need a club that works in all departments. We need excellent backroom staff, we need amazing scouting and we need to relearn how to develop raw talent into first team regulars.
We’ve got a crop of exceptional youngsters coming through and they can’t be drowned out by constantly dipping into the transfer market.
True, but while you can have money and still be shit it’s a lot more difficult to not have money and still be good
Absolutely, but money is the quickest way to getting a defensive general like Van Dijk and a world-class keeper like Allison who together have solved Liverpool’s longstanding defensive issues, and they are on pace for a 22 point improvement over last season as a result. It makes sense for Arsenal to return to what made the club so successful 15-20 years ago (all the wonderful things you mention above), but I do wonder if that is enough to compete for the top prizes in the more money-heavy world of football heading into 2020 or if re-achieving that methodology of success… Read more »
It’s going to take both, really. If there’s anything we see from Liverpool and Sp*rs, it’s that sensible use of the transfer market – both in and out – is what leads to climbing the talent pool as opposed to sliding down it.
Sitting on a pool of younger players that still need development until their value drops does nothing for us. And if we’ve got a player nearing peak worth a pile but have a real plan to better use that value, sometimes you’ve got to sell, ala Liverpool.
Liverpools owners must have got bored of slowly sinking money for nothing, and just thought lets do it now and do it right, like city have done!
I’ve been pretty proud about how we, as a football club, have welcomed Emery and shown him plenty of support. Man United have booed pretty much every manager since Fergie, Chelsea throw their toys out the pram the minute something goes wrong and even Spuds seems to get irrationally angry if their side lose a few big games. But I’ve seen very little sentiment that’s been negative or damaging for the new man. And there have been some truly disappointing moments. I was worried that post Wenger we’d fall into the trap of these other clubs and not understand that… Read more »
Emery has exceeded expectations. If he continues to do that, he’ll have the majority backing of the fans.
Exceeded expectations already now? I thought the expectation for this season is to qualify to CL. If he does it, your statement will be 100 % fair, otherwise – absolutely not.
I don’t think expectation was ever to qualify for champions league. I think it was more aspiration. But for me personally, it was just no further decline. When a manager leaves after 20 years it leaves a massive hole in the club. So I do feel Emery has gone beyond expectation. Now we’ll see if he can reach the club’s aspiration. If he does, that’s a pretty heroic job in my book.
Aha, so not qualifying to CL will be still ‚exceeding expectations’? Thats such a low bar Mate.
You seem to have quickly forgotten the “careful what you wish for” brigade who predicted a cascade down the table into obscurity. Wenger left us with some huge problems which have manifested themselves all season causing a massive problem for our adaptable manager. The fact we’ve stayed very competitive and even beaten United, Tottenham and Chelsea is more than I had expected. We are four points behind the best Tottenham squad in recent history with a game in hand. Not sure quite what you expected but it was likely naive.
First year manager, after a 20 year manager. Squad with clear holes in it, unlike Chelsea, and Liverpool who plugged theirs.
Yes, so far he’s exceeded my expectations-
for THIS season.
Next will be a higher bar.
The expectation has always been CL qualification as a minimum for Arsenal FC, and it continues to be that. The season is not a success if we fail to earn the funds that competition provides, and the competition for our squad that competition provides. We do not advance or grow as an organization without it. Emery has a job to do, but AW declined enough in his final few years that the legend does not loom over Emery the way Fergie’s did/has at MU.
I think the main problem is that things are always painted on one side and nobody wants to look at the fan’s perspective. We might get loud and react quickly, but looking at his team and what he has done, it sounds like fans should give blind faith in his process. I have said many times before that Arsenal fans, believe it or not, are some of the most patient fans on the planet. there are fans to this day still feel like Arsene should have stayed and wanted him to see out his contract. I use project youth as… Read more »
*Sigh* God forbid, if we don’t make it to the champions league, the rest will spend and we will need money to compete. And yet we need to make it in to get the transfer funds? That whole thing jus bores me. I was so on board while we sold our stars season after season because we were promised we would be up there when the stadium was built and the debts paid. Turns out all that was just so we could have 40 million pounds to spend this summer while the league is at its most competitive. Jokers. I… Read more »
The Champions League money will barely pay 2 or 3 of our top salaries. It is more about being able to attract the top players by offering CL football. Check the winning out.
If there is money coming in, I doubt it will be splashed in a major way with Stan about.
The club has NEVER said what we have to spend, its only the media…
If Emery turns into the manager that finally invests in our defence, then I am happy to have patience. We always lose to individual errors and a lack of quality in those positions.
There were questions asked of Guardiola in his first season, who took over a much better squad of players and had a much bigger budget. There was big questions over Klopp, particularly defensively over the first two and a half seasons, and in spite of Liverpool developing over the last 12 months into one of the best in Europe, They’ve still won precisely nothing. I think we need to give Emery at least a couple more seasons, to purge this squad of players who are overpaid and just not up to it, Ozil cough cough, Mkhitaryan cough. We may have… Read more »
Is Arsenal a hospital?, what’s with all the patients waiting for players and in the fan base.
Our injury problems over the years suggests yes.
He’s quite right. And we as fans need to show patience. He has done well with a very limited squad. We need at least two more transfer windows and he needs strong backing from the club to buy, buy, buy.
I think local fans should be patient on the head coach but should NOT on the owner.
Don’t forget Guns n’ Roses 1989 baby. This has become kind of a TLDR special, but hear me out. I’ve been a staunch Emery In’er not like those other belly buttons. Can’t stand the man-baby idiots calling for his head, like those wankers at Cardiff for Sarri who were shown up by a nice comeback (featuring a certain Mousquetaire). Don’t forget: he has had Mikhi Torreira Sokratis Kos Rambo “Ozil” all out injured at some point this year with pretty much ZERO quality backups to step in. He lost his STARTING CB AND RB, and his ONLY RELIABLE SQUAD STRIKER,… Read more »
Even if he is given time, he may not be given the resources to get that “extra” we need. Arsene Wenger built some great teams in the post Highbury era and on more than one occasion, we were one signing away from winning but the resources weren’t provided. The season we signed Ozil, if we had splashed the cash on Suarez too, arsenal would have been unbeatable. Wenger was never really the problem, Kronke is.
Exactly, look at The Glazers. They have spent 700 mil when United dropped to Europa Leauge. Of course, they haven’t had any major glory but at least they have tried. On the other hand, Kroenke let the club slowly but surely slip. They say the stadium cost us but we were actually UCL finalist once and UCL semi-finalist in 2008-2009. Things began to get worse in 2011 when Kroenke offically became the owner. The money was nowhere to befound. ZERO investment even when Arsenal dropped to a tier 2 club. And yeah, just look at our rival, those Scum are… Read more »
We might just have the second worst owners in the top 6 (better than Spurs). Emery is an excellent manager, let’s give him enough time to get us back where we belong.
If we hadn’t lost Hector, Danny and Rob Holding to season ending injuries we would have already secured top 4 of that I have no doubt. We’ve been hit badly in the last few weeks with other injuries and suspensions as well. The last two games, whilst irritating and unacceptable have been the result of tired legs and tired minds. Everybody still underestimates the impact of the Thursday Sunday schedule and then the gruelling last month, hampered by some ridiculous match scheduling. I’ve been watching football of over 40 years and I can’t ever remember playing on a Monday and… Read more »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ4ziRhLGCE
So you wanted to make a song reference to “Patience” and you chose Lloyd Cole over GNR?? We must come from two different worlds entirely. One has 10k hits on YT, the other has 413 million. Were you friends with someone in the band, or does your taste in music blow that bad?
I prefer Lloyd Cole to Guns ‘n’ Roses.
Lloyd Cole is criminally underrated. Great choice.
YouTube hits is not a measure of quality- look at Justin Beiber
Stop making a commotion.
Clearly, Emery is right.
But he can only turn Arsenal into another “Valencia” or “Sevilla” with a tied budget.
1st season in the Toughest league in the World.
Liverpool already have more points than the invincibles & may not win it!
Man U & Chelsea competing for top 4 with arguably far better squads & certainly more resources.
Certainly doing better than Arsene in recent years.
He has done very well IMO
Sack him immediately. #EmeryOut.
Dude. That’s the first thing you need to be an Arsenal anything.
Maybe this means Arsenal are going to sign Gonçalo Paciência, a Portuguese player currently playing for Eintracht Frankfurt?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonçalo_Paciência
Just watched this young centre back’s performance at Spurs:-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issa_Diop_(footballer)
Surely we can uncover a few young centre backs in Europe. Just needs good scouting anwillingness to make a decision / risk.
Its his first season and some people feel fit to start throwing the toys out of the pram already. Probably some of the same people who wanted Wenger Out and opined that they were willing to give the gaffer 3 seasons to get back into CL, didn’t mind not having the fourth place pot because it was getting ‘boring’. Unai has plenty to sort out. 1) He has inherited a squad that has not been strengthened bc of Mslintat. There are still gaping capabilities not resolved that have been outstanding for 3 or 4 seasons now in at Cback, midfield… Read more »
In terms of the summer, we need to make room in the wage bill. Mslintat and Raul have saddled us into the Panic Loan era otherwise. Cech and Koscielny (Durability) prob step down. Welbeck may be sold. Ramsey gone. Also we need to get rid of Elneny and Jenkinson (if there are buyers for their prodigious talents) Suarez hasn’t done enough to warrant a full purchase. Lichsteiner’s loan will end (not that it has been of much help, may as well have kept Chambers) We will have needs in several areas : 1) Keeper – With Cech stepping down, the… Read more »
Spurts dropped points against West Ham just saying. If they somehow lose third to us (St Totteringhams) or drop out of top 4 even, (get beat by a young and impressive Ajax)….
COYG, stop mucking around, lets get stuck in at Leicester.