Arsenal may have suffered another heavy defeat to Liverpool at Anfield but Unai Emery insists the club have reasons to be positive.
Goals from Joel Matip and a brace from Mohamed Salah put the home side in a commanding position inside an hour but the Gunners kept plugging away and finally reduced the deficit through substitute Lucas Torreira.
While the gulf in quality between the two sides was clear for all to see, the boss thinks his players have something to build on.
Speaking to the BBC, he said, “Today the first half we worked together. We were doing some transition very good and we had some chances but the second half the penalty was very soft. After 2-0 our reaction was good. We needed to attack and take a different moment in the match.
“Yes we are disappointed we lost 3-1 but watching some players we can be optimistic. We need to improve in possession and countering the pressure but Liverpool is the best team with this.
“We have to be realistic but we can fight closer to them. For me today, without the result there were some good periods we showed.”
Emery was also asked about the future of Nacho Monreal. The left-back delivered another solid performance at left-back but has been linked with a move to Real Sociedad. Judging by the boss’ words, it sounds like a deal isn’t out of the question.
“He made a very big match, he’s a big professional for us,” Emery told football.london.
“We need to speak in the next days. In Europe the transfer window isn’t finished. We are going to speak about all the possibilities.”
Seems like the same gap as before to the top two teams, though perhaps United and Chelsea are weaker, which is good news for us.
Thought we were quite good for the first 40 minutes and then again after Torreira came on. Between that we were truly horrible and looked as weak at the back as in the worst Wenger days. Let’s hope it was just because of the unquestioned quality of the opposition and we’ll learn from it.
But man, Luiz went full Mustafi today.
We lost Matip for the corner and Luiz gave away the penalty but overall I thought we defended quite well
We did, but chances not taken, 3 goals we should have had.
Feels like progress. We’ve been outplayed at Anfield a lot but I thought first half we matched them. Pepe missed a good chance and we had some exciting breaks. If Salah decides to turn it on, he’s a bit like Henry or Ronaldo used to be, in that he can kill a game single handedly.
It’s a perfectly acceptable result although I’d love to have seen three up front and just try to outscore them instead of outthink them.
If we lose next weekend we’re probably behind both Chelsea and United.
And Spurs
I’m fed up!
It doesn’t matter who we are hiring. Start to compare our XI with Liverpool. Than compare our squad with Liverpool. Probably you will notice the same that some of us have noticed long time ago. Our team will be better, but Emery will need more quality players to compete with Liverpool and ManCity. Don’t forget our standing after the 2017/18 season, we finished sixth with 63 points ‘only’ 37 points behind ManCity…
They invested in their squad, while we were looking for cheap options.
We paid £72 million for Pépé, and almost £30 million for Saliba and approximately £27 million for Tierney. Young and very promising players, but absolutely not cheap. Our squad had too many average players and it takes time to rebuild our squad. It was not don in one window for Liverpool and ManCity either…
This excuse is getting boring now.
Emery has been our head coach for one year, Klopp has been with Liverpool since 2015. Arsenal had finished sixth in the league with 63 points, 12 points short of top four, before Emery arrived. Last season we got 70 points, 1 point short of top four. This season I expect more points and CL qualification. Our XI and squad are better, but we are still fare behind Liverpool and ManCity. In my opinion Emery will need another year or two to build our squad and makes us title contenders..
Emery is a rubbish coach who doesn’t deserve another year or two, even with all the stars at PSG he was rubbish and they couldn’t wait to get rid of him.
Yes, reality can be hard to face…
Pepe is still working his way back to match fitness, but there was enough on display today to get very excited.
The hype is real with that dude
I saw our record signing miss a basic one-on-one. I know we want to look to the fitness issue to justify his lack of impact but he really should have scored. It’s not a difficult chance. You don’t have to be fit to slot the ball into the corner.
This match fitness is a myth only Arsenal believe in. Salah, Mane, & Firminho had postseason competitions, yet they have played in every game. While Toreira is being tested and now Pepe is not match fit. We go into matches against the big sides with our tails between our legs, it’s an Arsenal mentality. No balls no guts from manager to players. This is the last Arsenal game I have watched for the season, nothing will change. Last season I watched until December. The last three seasons of Wenger reign, I never watched a single game, having watched every available… Read more »
Oh no what shall we do without you.
Call yourself a fan. Support your team through thick and thin. Hope you stay away
Some players have the will to win, always, some players give up at the first hurdle. But players are going, and i wont be surprised if additions arrive in some way in jan or pre agree for summer.
Bandwagon fan. Go support another team, you don’t bleed red and white.
I’d rather lose to a Liverpool than to Palace at home by a 94th minute goal
Me too!
amen.
Well, I guess I’d rather not lose to anyone, but I know what you’re saying: one is forgivable. The other is Mustafi.
Is this where we are at as a club?
Yes, we’re a club in transition, and transitions don’t happen overnight.
Our current level is fighting for 4th place, and third at a push.
Emery in his third season in Sevilla, beat Klopp in his first season at Liverpool, in the Europa league final.
Coaches need time to mould their squads, and install the right balance, Emery Inherited a mess, it was always going to be 3rd/4th season we start to notice significant progress.
The age profile of some of our squad bodes well, time to get behind players and manager
Lighten up and yes. We have a lot of catching up to do to get near Liverpool. Better teams than us in Man City and Barcelona have been hammered there.
It’s really unclear to me why our supporters are so thick that they don’t understand you can’t change a team overnight. There was conventional wisdom that this project was going to take 3 to 4 transfer windows before we got the requisite quality of players to be competitive. Emery has had two windows where we bought players and one of those windows he had little or no say in the incoming players. Time will tell whether he is the coach to take us to the top, I have my doubts but for fuck sakes stop the moaning and get behind… Read more »
That’s the positive today.
Time to move on from xhaka. Enough chances given by both Wenger and Emery. Play to our strength by which I mean the trio of Laca Auba and Pepe. And it’s fuckin Emery’s job to make a system where all 3 of them can play.
I fully agree. I think it was Emery’s mistake in playing Xhaka today. However, I think Emery still needs help in replacing some expensive players not quite needed for this team – Mhki, Ozil, Mustafi and Xhaka. If we manage to replace these 4 with couple of quality players a CB and CM, Emery will have better options to fit in that front 3.
He trusts Torreira so I can only assume he isn’t full up to fitness yet. Xhaka made sense given the inexperience of other options around him. Would like to see Torreira alongside Guendouzi next week though. I’ve no issue with Ceballos or willock starting with them against spurs.
It’s not, it’s his job to get results, He was let down by players today.
Exactly. Emery shat his pants today, could’ve tried with his best team, he didn’t.
Xhaka should have been sold this window IMO but I can’t complain about the window, the club did excellent work. It was obvious based on the preseason Willock had, the growth of Guendoobie, Cebbalos incoming and the pit bull that Xhaka wasn’t going to get game time and his value would diminish over the course of the season. There were more glaring holes to fill this summer but neither he nor Ozil really have a functional place within this set up against the top teams. We will see both in the lessor competitions.
I understand Emery’s biggest concern was packing the box against all their dangerous crossing, but the midfield was wide open for them the entire game. Fabinho was in 40 yards of space every time he got the ball. Any team in the world will go to Anfield and face an onslaught, but the super low block invited what felt like relentless pressure. You could tell the players weren’t used to it either, they’d set up the low block far too early in transition. It was all so comfortable for Liverpool. Some good counter attacks and not a dreadful performance overrall.… Read more »
To be honest there is no shame in losing away to this Liverpool team. But the manager’s tactics and team selection did us no good whatsoever. Emery has proved to be a reactionary manager who constantly adjusts his tactics and selection based on the opponents. That style of management is best suited to small teams and under dogs not a big club like Arsenal. If you look at most of the big clubs they have managers with a clearly defined style. I don’t mind adjusting tactics and team selection occasionally but not every fucking game! It seems to me that… Read more »
Couldn’t agree more with you. Adopting 3rd tier teams tactics against the so-called big sides is disgraceful.
Yeah, let’s go there and try to out play them again, that’s always worked out in the past….
Emery gave the players every chance to win that game, the missed their chances and made mistakes that cost us goals. We looked much worse when we had to drop the game plan to chase the game..
You’d think after years of Wenger you would be sick of watching us go to better teams and “have a proper go”…
Lenoxito, thought the same myself. Think Emery is not the level for Arsenal and never will be. With such approach we are showing that we don’t believe in ourselves at all.
Good talk #lenoxito……Emery is a the type of manager arsenal needs.
Is Emery the new Ranieri….Always tinkering?
Thought the same myself Goonertic. Emery the new tinkerman. Might bring an occasional miracle like Ranieri but with a lot of mediocrity inbetween.
Am with you on this.
Didnt really understand the tactics to be honest. Against two of the best wingers in the league, he left monreal and AMN left high and dry defending them alone with that lineup. Yet 6 players right through the middle.
Poor tactics in my opinion which didnt make sense.
Exactly.
Complete crap from Emery. Poor mentality cost us this game, from manager to players, even the fans are now beginning to accept it. We can’t go up against a so called big side with a third tier mentality. We might as well write the FA to award the points to our opponents because the results are forgone conclusions. Poor team selection and formation were employed by Emery. It seems nothing is going to change at Arsenal. We pay coaches and players fat salaries for persistent underperformance. No way to hide behind 4th place finish now that we are a mid-table… Read more »
So well said.
We should be playing better irrespective of the opponent, if he keeps setting us up like that against the top six teams away I dnt think we gonna win anytime soon….
I really want to like Unai Emery, I try to like him, but I don’t. And the more crap about being protagonists he comes out with, the more he aggravates me. The negative team selections, reactive tactics, the micro-management and overthinking that seems to suck the life out of the football, the jumping up and down waving and shouting like an idiot. I’m loving the team, the good transfer window, the changes all around the club, I’m trying to be positive and will always support the players on the pitch, but every time I convince myself that I like this… Read more »
No you’re not. After we were so poor at the end of last season, I lost belief in Emery. With the transfers and his willingness to use younger players and try more expansive football, he gave me a reason for optimism but seeing the tactics today and the team selection I think that he got scared and became defensive and acted like a midtable club coach again. Don’t think he’ll ever be the level we need and want, so even if we make this shitty top 4 “trophy” this year I hope Josh primarily sees that we can do better.… Read more »
Is it just naive or plain stupid to start experimenting with the team(remove the wingers) away from home against the team in the league that build all their attacking from their wingbacks? Stupid misstakes by Luiz but for me Emery is the one to blame! All our attacking came from individual challenges…zero created by tactics!
Everybody talks about players, who else will reason about the wrong tactics by the coach…what about selection? Do we even play our traditional arsenal style any more?
Liverpool can easily beat City 3-1 at home, thet won Champions League, kicking barca out of the competition without serveral key players at Anfield. I Said it before the game, A loss is not a disaster, the important thing is the charachter we display. Knipplekullen was questioned well into his 2nd year at Pool, completely nuts but that is how fans and media will reason now a days. Personally, I see emery having a much more purposeful squad anno 2019 than 2018, it is far to early to expect that to project into victory against city or pool. Top 4… Read more »
Lol!!!! 🙂 Klopp being auto corrected to Knipplekullen…. thx apple for the prank 🙂
Silly excuses
We have shown no progress.
We made them look better than they should.
Shit tactics but also some poor choices made last summer again.
Don’t be so naive.
Incorrect, we reached EL final last year, and did better in the league. Not a mind blowing improvement in direct comparison, but far better than One can expect considering the down spiral we where in and massive challenge for emery to come in after 2 decades of Wenger. Naive? getting upset after loosing to pool at anfield is naive, or just ignorant.
Should be put into “our” dictionary like mugsmasher, lans etc.. I for one am gonna try to use it, as it sounds like an old PES name: Knipplekullen!
Fuck it, name them…
Gaffer was poor today. I mentioned yesterday I thought we needed to curtail their flank play. Stop fullbacks bombing forward and putting in crosses. 3 at the back with Kolasinac in tandem with Monreal and Chambers with AMN would have been better. Instead we sat too deep and ceded too much space out wide. Cebellos was missing today having to sit deeper but not knowing what role he should be in. No Luiz. Band aid buy as I mentioned. An older version of Mustafi without the experience. We should have arrayed 3 at the back : …………………..Auba………………………Pepe……………………….. …………………………………Cebellos…………………………………… Kolasinac………………………………………………………………..AMN ………………………..Guendouzi…….Granit…………………………….… Read more »
He is a brave manager, the comments you make resembles the feedback Klopp got for sticking to his plan, even if the team didn’t get it and lost points.
While it remains to be seen if emery can build a likewise competitive team, He needs to continue to be brave, and hopefully not taking to much influence from those in the surrounding that doesn’t realize that reshaping a team is a bumpy road. Just ask Klopp.
He’s not a brave manager, he is a cowardly manager. Playing like burnley or stoke is not a brave manager, with most of the team sitting deep and Liverpool bombarding them the result is only going to be one thing. Leaving your forward anchor-man on the bench so you can fit in another man behind the ball is not brave. It’s a championship manager, he’s rubbish and the more I think about how he’s forcing our team to play with his stupid, negative tactics the more pissed off I become. Hopefully Josh, after watching that mess and the negative mess… Read more »
Bright sparks would be some of what Pepe did. He showed some great moments but he needs to learn (and he will) he has a second or two less on the ball in this league. Finishing for that one on one with Adrian poor but otherwise got into great positions and generally gave us some sort of an outlet we have been missing for some seasons now, in being able to dribble and break with pace from deep. BUT still (understandably) dsyncopated with Auba and wouldprefer he or Cebellos had been given instructions to put pressure on Fabinho better for… Read more »
I agree. I saw a lot of positives for us in that game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2LNfISHRpk can’t stand these two clowns on espn but they are spot on on a number of points. Its that glaring. David Luiz….some Arsenal fans simply need a reality check. And agree with frustration on Auba. He does not protect the ball well enough or put it away when we really need to establish psychological hold on a game. Ridiculous to play back 4 and relinquish so much time and space to their fullbacks. Cebellos no idea where he needs to be today. Just simply astounding how some fans prefer to shift blame conveniently away from certain subjects they prefer… Read more »
Listen, dillhole, at least it was a plan, it didn’t work, but so what. Do you have any idea how well ‘Pool have been playing at home for the last couple of seasons?
You’re a mug and I’ve had enough of your gobshite. Go make your blogging name somewhere else and with another team, and leave us in peace.
Huge gulf between us. One positive is our midfield is extremely young and will improve, and another is we will naturally improve as they adapt, new signings adapt and players come back in to the side. I do think a bit that Emery had a choice between conceding the wide areas and trusting us on crosses or letting Liverpool go at us through the middle. For the most part, I think he made the right choice but this was never a game I fancied us getting anything out of if Liverpool scored first. We’ve a way to go and our… Read more »
There are signs of a good team trying to emerge from this Arsenal side, but this match came too early in the season for us.
It’s never going to be easy to get something from this Liverpool team, particularly away but I think our failings yesterday were more tactical than personnel. For instance, why did we constantly try to play out from the back through Liverpool’s high press when we had two pacy forwards there, waiting for the early ball over the top? A few of those and Liverpool sit deeper, which then gives the space to play out
Always thought we were gonna get beaten, the gulf in quality is just too big. Then I saw Xhaka in the line up and thought wtf, man. The first 5 min my biggest fears seemed to materialize but we came through and looked for once like we are doing what so many teams try against us: absorb everything, have a zillion chances against you only to score that one chance…alas it didn’t come of. I get the criticism of Emery and the small team mentality, but it was early in the season and an understandable approach in my view. We… Read more »
Why didnt Emery include Ozil at least on the bench? He plays.defence defence.defence. Stupid him….Attack is the best form of defence!!
Start 3 up front with Özil just behind them. Liverpool will ay a.different game. Im sure they were as surprised with the spaces they got all over the.pitch especially the flanks. We could have forced a different game. But Emery timid and overcareful selection kills it all
I’m gonna say what yall been thinking.. Emery Out.
I stayed away from football from 5pm last night so I could watch the game with my Son later on. In the back of my mind was don’t get thrashed and for the first 40 minutes, unlike any other outing for the last 5 seasons, we hadn’t conceded a goal within the first 15 minutes. It took them 40 minutes to put the ball in the back of the net. It was unfortunate that we conceded quite quickly in the 2nd half but looking at the positions of both our centre backs, even if David Luis hadn’t pulled the shirt,… Read more »
Look guys, just calm down. I definitly understand the frustration, but there was an improvement to be seen. This frustrastion is similiar to the hasty corenation of Ceballos after ONE game. I agree, the team selection was wrong. However, the plan was clear and I for one aprreciate that. During the last Wenger years, the team looked like they did not know WHAT to do or HOW to do it. Now i saw a clear plan. Unfortunately it was wrong. Emery needs the time and they will improve. Let of unfold instead of this (borderline unneccasary) behavior. Mark my words,… Read more »
IF EMERY DOES NOT DELIVER ANY THING TANGIBLE TO US AT THE END OF THE SEASON, I CAN’T SEE HIM ESCAPE THE HAMMER. REMEMBER, INASMUCH AS I DON’T LIKE HIM, MOURINHO IS WATCHING AND WILL GIVE RESULTS WHICHEVER WAY.
I may want Emery OUT….at least for my own selfish reason that I want Arsenal to do better than we are doing. And also I want Ozil to be played. But still, I will never want that shithole, shit mouth Mourinho to ever come close to my beloved team. NEVER EVER!!