Unai Emery says his side don’t need to deliver ‘brilliant’ performances to pick up points on the road, they just need to be ‘competitive’; as proved by recent wins against Watford and Napoli.
Having dropped points on Sunday at home to Crystal Palace, Arsenal can’t afford negative results at Wolves and Leicester in the coming days.
It means we’ll need to shrug off our patchy form away from the Emirates, something that the boss things can happen if we keep it simple.
“We are speaking about being consistent and competitive,” he told his pre-game press conference.
“Sometimes we can be competitive but less brilliant than in our gameplan and we won doing that.
“Sometimes you are competitive, play brilliantly and it also gives you the victory. The two last matches away, we won against Napoli and against Watford and we weren’t brilliant.
“But we played competitively and it was enough for us to win. But we need to improve because maybe in the next match, it’s not enough for us to win.
“We are continuing in our way of thinking to improve, with big competitiveness. Some moments in the 90 minutes we need to not be brilliant, but to be competitive.
“In other moments, we need to be brilliant to use our quality to win against the opposition. Tomorrow we need more.
“We need to be competitive and we need some moments of quality. But above all, our organisation, our capacity to keep moving ahead but being organised and being consistent.”
Despite Arsenal’s defeat to Palace, our quest for a top-four finish remains in our hands courtesy of other results which included defeats for Sp*rs and Manchester United and a surprising draw between Chelsea and Burnley. After a poor day at the office, it should give a timely boost to the squad.
“At the beginning it’s in our hands if we win,” he said. “We want to be intelligent. On Sunday, we didn’t win but maybe today we can say that one point was important on Sunday.
“Maybe that can happen in the next matches. We will prepare to win but we can win, draw or lose. The first situation for us is in our hands if we win, but then we’re going to play difficult matches.
“Chelsea v Burnley at home was a difficult match and we were thinking they were going to win, but they were playing against a very strong Burnley side, it was a very tough match and the result was a draw.
“We want to be intelligent and consistent in 38 matches. Sometimes, one draw can be the way.”
Just win, and we all would be fine.
Even with a CB pairing of Mustafi and Lichtsteiner. Provided, we win.
But first, WIN!
Watch the Arsenal Player on Arsenal.com Adrian Clarke make s a fair and non hysterical assessment of where we went wrong. Nothing I haven’t mentioned either : 1) We had systemic issues defending set pieces (and overall defending TBH) beyond just Mustafi. For the third goal, Mustafi should have stayed with his man but Torreira was left to win the first ball. This should not have been. 2) Highline. Constantly, we were out of sync with our own offside trap. Jenkinson played everyone on for first goal. Leads to question should we have risked the finesse of the highline with… Read more »
Wow! If only Emery was reading this. You try to defend Mustafi and pushing Mavropanos and Jenkinson under the bus. One is a very young CB who hardly played this season due to injury, and the other is a backup full-back whose days are numbered at the club. Neither of them did anything in the Palace to write home about, but this is expected, and many might say their mistakes/shortcomings are livable. Mustafi on the other hand is a 35 Million defender who was brought in to shore up a leaky defense, and he is losing us points. And yes,… Read more »
The very definition of irony : santori slating others consistently for seeing just what they want to see in games rather than what actually happened …and then EVERY game the same santori gives us an analysis of the game which is exactly just what he wanted to see and not what actually happened.
I always thought the definition of irony would be if Margaret Thatcher had anemia.
No man. He doesnt defend Mavropanos and Mustafi. He adresses other big issues that should not be covered up. This team’s problems are not inherently Mustafi’s or else’s. We have to sell him I agree but there are many other aspects that need to be worked on. Santori’s post is simple as that.
You wrote all that to indirectly attempt to prove your point that Mustafi is not shit. You are a bellend. You must be that guy who is trying to prove Mustafi is better than Van Dijk. Mustafi makes mistakes over and over again. And there not lapses or inconsistency its simply because he is shit. We are poor all round defensively but when he plays he just exacerbates every flaw we have. He is gas to fire. And all his mistakes are things you never see from professionals. His catalogue of errors are all unforgettable memes.
show me a clip from this season where iwobi succesfully dribbles past an opponent and doesn’t give the ball away instantly afterwards. there must be around 5, if.
no one:
santori: here’s my 2500-word recap and assessment of the match.
Emery is proving to be insightful, at key moments in the season he changed the narrative.
“competitiveness” is the marching order for his troops to gather and conquer the business end of the season. COYG 3rd place and Europa League. Let’s celebrate st Totterigham’s once again and feel a real trophy in our hands!!
Absolutely.
Just win.
Don’t need any fancy complicated moves, over elaboration up front, get the ball into their net but whatever means even clumsy bundling over the line stuff.
Rack up the lead and ensure the other side does not have psychological impetus to come at our knacked defense.
This is the control Unai wants not the 70% sterile possession.
We need goals.
We need to channel our inner Welbeck.
Guess recognising the picture makes me old these days.
Reference, please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv_662IqKto
Yeah…us too.
the best picture this site has ever done!
True, but it like us to at least try
Shots fired…he’s clearly telling the players they weren’t competitive enough.
Yeah, and a good reminder that sometimes playing hard, hustling, grinding, will get you goals when trying to play pretty and such won’t–case in point, Auba’s goal against Watford being the only one we could get. At this point in the season, you take ’em however you can get ’em.
No Ozil then.
Not sure there’s much choice
Didn’t notice Sokratis is already back from ban. That’s good news at least. Hopefully Koscielny is also fit to pair with Sokratis. The two are the most experienced heads and only ones who seem to be able to hold in a back 4. Mustafi was OK in back 3 but put into a back 4 he is all over the place. Mavro is a bit inexperienced IMO to risk. If we should go to back 3 then Monreal should factor in for more experience. Otherwise without Koscielny it s a real toss up back there. Sokratis and Monreal for sure.… Read more »