At Unai Emery’s post-match press conference following the Gunners’ 2-1 Emirates Cup defeat to Lyon, Arseblog News had the opportunity to ask the Arsenal Head Coach how concerned he was about the defence. Here was his response.
“In the first half I think we defended very well. In the first half our positioning was good and offensively we created chances and we controlled the game. Sometimes we had to play without the ball in the first half and we needed to be together defensively and we were.
“But generally in the first 45 minutes the team worked like we want them to and to try to find a way to win. In the second half, we lost a little bit of rhythm maybe. We felt more comfortable on the pitch and this wasn’t a positive comfort we thought maybe because we were creating lots of chances that we were going to win.
“The first goal was a surprise to us and we lost the moment. But I really want to watch the match again and analyse the way we can improve. If I take a worry from today, maybe it is that we thought we were going to win and that can happen.
“We played with a lot of young players today and maybe, maybe we lost a bit of concentration that you need for the whole 90 minutes. But that is a lesson and now we have 90 minutes more to get information. We were in a good position and playing ver well and we lost. We had a good balance offensively in the first half and we lost that in the second half.”
Emery was then asked if he should be buying more defenders, amid rumours of a big money deal for winger Nicolas Pepe. “We are deciding on how to improve. We want to sign players, but only ones who can really, really improve us in this position.
“We wanted to buy a winger and a centre back and we are working. I want a better team than we had last year. I think we have a very good team and we will only buy players that can improve us.”
Emery also confirmed that he is still to decide on his first captain for next season, with Granit Xhaka taking the armband against Lyon. “We have Xhaka and Nacho Monreal and I want two more captains and we will decide who is the number one captain in the next few weeks.”
Sorry Unai, you have had one year, not 90 more minutes, to do something about the defence. We still look porous as ever regardless of who plays. This year we’ll really see if it’s the players, or the manager, who need replacing. He has to perform, otherwise goodbye. Any competent manager would be rubbing their hands at managing our squad once we get Pepe and Tierney, with Saliba to come next season
This season will be good because there’s no hiding place anymore. Unai’s been backed given that we’ll have spent over £100m if we can get the last few signings in. Emery knows he has to improve and actually give Arsenal some sort of an identity, otherwise Raul will pull the trigger at the end of the season and activate the clause in his contract to release him.
‘we look porous as ever regardless of who plays’ – I personally think it is because of who plays, not regardless. We lost 2 starters in the defence in Bellerin and Holding last year. Both will be out for the start of this season. Tierney, if signed, will also likely miss a few games at the start of the season. I think this season will be an improvement on the last, but to expect Emery to have done something about the defence by now is unreasonable.
You say this but watch as Simeone makes Trippier into peak Roberto Carlos. Some managers are just that good.
Whoa whoa now, Simeone is a good manager but he’s not bloody Dumbledore! Let’s calm down here 🙂
I hear you mate but I think it’s actually more to do with Emery’s system, rather than individual players (bar Mustafi but he’s beyong saving)
beyond*
Why is unreasonable to expect that Emery would have done something to fix our defense? It’s not a recent problem.
As much as I agree that those two players are hugely important to our defensive solidity. Even with both Holding and Bellerin when they were fit last season, during our run of unbeaten games. There were times when we were still cut open like a peach. I remember games where we did ride our luck at times and were fairly lucky not to have lost — off the top of my head the Wolves game at home springs to mind. And there were quite a few others games like that. I think we have to really look at that right-back… Read more »
Four games against weaker teams at the end of last season and we missed top four even with so many chances to redeem ourselves. Reality is the manager hasn’t done the job required. Anything else said is political correctness. Himself said it was total attacking football under Wenger and that defence was neglected but hasn’t fixed it. Is he the best protagonist of good defence?
#EmeryOut…. Glad we started this already 😉
Who started it. Only toxic idiots like you believe that
I cannot believe a professional manager needs more than a few matches watching the gunners to se 1 we are good going forward but 2 are disorganise in defence when the opposition attacks….so why keep looking at strikers wingers etc when our priority should be a world class centre back and left back….until this is resolved we will not be a team capable of improving our performances.j
” I want a better team than we had last year.”
Assuming that Lolo leaves, our defense is worse today than it was at the start of last season. Pepe looks amazing and Ceballos might be the real deal but if we don’t drastically improve our defense then none of that matters.
I believe we’ll get a CB in before the window closes.
I might get lots of thumbs down for this, but I think working on our attack is equally as important as the defence. If we had another player in double figures in the goals last season, we’d be firmly in the CL places.
If the Pepe deal crosses the line, I’ll tip us to finish top 4 if all we do after that is sign Tierney and replace Koscielny.
How did you manage to do that last sentence? Says everything.
I thought it was wrong to boo Mustafi. Yes he’s not good enough but it’s the club’s fault, they bought him, Wenger made lots of mistakes with centre backs, they haven’t been able to move him on or replace him. If he comes on the field as an arsenal player he should be supported.
yea I agree.
It also makes the player play worse, and the general atmosphere worse. And for what, just caus you feel bad that he’s playing.
Piss poor to not be able to control your emotions to help the team.
Also, the dude clearly loves Arsenal, despite being constantly blamed for every goal we concede he’s always got a smile on his face and is a good character for the dressing room. If Jenko played week in week out and undoubtably made some mistakes, would he be booed? Nope, because I’m pretty sure, correct me if I’m wrong here, we like him cos he loves Arsenal. Cut some slack angry fans and try to not care too much about who starts and who doesn’t etc etc, sure banter about it with your mates and so on, but don’t bring that… Read more »
He says we are in the market for a CB. Fingers crossed, we get one. A good one.
Yes, encouraging since it’s the first time I heard him saying anything about a new CB.
Fingers crossed!
Yes I’m certain he was talking about Saliba. I don’t expect another centre back to be signed unless both Koscielny and Mustafi are sold.
Probably talking about Saliba haha
With the wages Mustafi is on, we can not shift him. We have a few others we can not shift as well unfortunately. I like the rumour of Rugani on a 2 year loan deal with option to buy.
We need central midfielder and a dirty CB. We are not win 50 :50. And second ball from our midfielder s.
I am.afraid there’s more to our defensive issues than just chucking in more centre backs. It’s defo true that we need upgrades on current options, but then, here are some other things to consider: 1. When Le Coq and Santi Cazorla played in front of our defence in 2015 we conceded lesser goals than usual. Meaning that the midfield pairing in front of the defense is very crucial. We currently miss this. 2. The coaches don’t seem to have any inkling on how to get the team to defend better. I think if we can fix the above two, we… Read more »
Midfield is important but it goes both ways, the midfield needs to be able to trust the CBs and they currently can’t.
Agreed. The constant chopping and changing doesn’t help. He needs to decide a preferred system and get the players to stick with it.
As it is, he’s carrying on doing what we were for Wenger’s last three or four years and shuffling the pack, because he’s not sure what the right cast is.
I would add a winning/not losing mentality.
Both goals were due to a lag of focus/determination.
How often do we see our full backs being slow or uninterested to close the opposition wingers down and preventing them from putting in crosses?
I will simply never understand it..
yup. we need 1 destroyer in front of the defence, which is torrreira, AND 1 more in CM who is interested and competent in defending, and who can also pass the ball well with speed and creativity. hopefully we loaned that solution, because Xhaka sure as hell is not the answer because he takes too long on the ball before playing those hollywood passes, and he cant defend for shit. oh, and he’s slow as tortoise.
Most defensive errors are from tiredness or lack of concentration
Sadly some players today are not committed enough to the cause
Money has ruined the game and fans who expect 100% from players today are deluded.
So sit back,watch the game,cheer on your team
AND PRAY
Mustafi needs to go, now. I’ll chip in for his fee if that’s what it takes.
Yup and send Xhaka with him
Xhaka is as bad as mustafi
OK – try wearing my ‘wild optimists’ Hat.
Tierney signs ; Holding returns ; and we start to form a defensive Unit…..maybe ?
Good Ebenin our defence is still shit
I just want Pepe, I’m overly anxious about that, let myself to get too excited on seeing the Pepe, laca, auba trio. If that doesn’t happen I will lose my faith on Orny, the prophet that caused this anxiousness.
But good that Emery said something about signing a center back.
Result aside, I think the younger guys were really impressive. I think Nketiah needs a loan and regular football – he’s done well but he’s just missing some match smartness that Nelson has.
Joe Willock being an anomaly, he is going to have a very interesting season.
Yep – loan out Nketiah and ESM and Saka, and play Nelson and Willock now.
Agree on Nelson. He needs to be a regular now. Very alert, speed and making great moves.
“We are deciding on how to improve. We want to sign players, but only ones who can really, really improve us in this position.”
Sounds familiar. like ‘top top quality’
Emery needs better defenders to coach so I dont fully blame him for our poor defence. We’ve been rubbish in defence for God knows how long so the board to step up to the plate and back Emery. I’m not gonna get frustrated until the window closes because who knows what’s going to happen
Just looking at our August fixtures, it’s interesting that we play Liverpool 4 weeks today. They lost 0-3 today with their first choice defence, and have conceded 9 goals in their last 4 games, so it seems ideal that we play them so early in the season. Could be a useful early gauge to see where we’re at. They don’t have Salah, Mane, Firmino back in training yet either, so how fresh will they be in 4 weeks.
Great to see so many of our young players getting game time and the new players looking good to. I felt like there is hope and hunger within the squad.
we have the defence to work on but will be easier with the injured on their way back and maybe another signing added. For me it’s way to early to dam the manager and the squad, I’m looking forward to seeing the young and new players develop. I guess we can’t all be moody gunners.
Our defending is bad but i think our midfielders are just as bad if not worse and its been like that since we sold Gilberto/vieira. Fbs get no protection. Torreira is our only truly combative cm but he is tiny and can be bullied at times. Ozil, mHki and Iwobi and man others are not only clueless defensively but just generally dont seem to have it in them to do that gritty stuff. Other than Guendouzi and Willock who even attempts to tackle and harass. Our invincibles were amazing because of guys like Gilberto, Parlour,Edu Ljungberg. Not the flashiest or… Read more »
Winger – Pepe. Keep Nelson in first team. Cback – Raul work your charm with footballing relations at your old club…get us Umtiti please. Then there’s systemic issues to sort out too. Every niggly defeat, some people prefer to do the lazy thing and blame Mustafi. It ignores our real issues. As I have always mentioned, he isn’t the only one to lose the ball in critical areas or lose concentration. You can easily see Torreira also has made a heap of mistakes leading to goals against us. If you want to blame Mustafi for the season, you could just… Read more »
hahaha shawcross broke his ankle i think… every dog an all that
“We played with a lot of young players today and maybe, maybe we lost a bit of concentration that you need for the whole 90 minutes”
Seemed more of the fault of the experienced players, so a little concerning he went with pointing at the youth.
Random question. Whose idea is it to make Xhaka our designated corner kick taker? I don’t understand it and that does my head in. He is so poor at it yet he keeps taking it. All season last season. No other club wastes set pieces like ours.
I don’t think Arsenal management really wants to spend big money
For an example look at Liverpool last two seasons
They lacked DEFENSE and want for the best not left over.
Arsenal need good CB than any other team in top6 .
You can’t compare our financial position to Liverpool’s. The Arsenal management don’t have big money to spend, and the Kroenke’s certainly aren’t going to chip in. We’re losing between £25 million and £35 million a season by just not being in the early CL rounds. Liverpool have got to two CL finals recently, winning one. The money is pouring into Anfield. They also have a much better commercial set up than we do – despite our recent kit deal. Read The Arsenal Supporter’s Trust report on the club’s finances and you’ll get a better view of our position.
Is Krystian Bielik that poor in training etc that he is not worth an opportunity? Seems bizarre
Is Krystian Bielik so bad in training etc that he is not even considered? Seems bizarre that he has not been given an opportunity
Don’t know – it’s all very odd. I think he’s on his way though, whatever the reason.