Unai Emery was very pleased with Arsenal’s day at the office as Nottingham Forest were crushed 5-0 in the Carabao Cup thanks to goals from youngsters and eye-catching performances from players reuturning from injury.
Gabriel Martinelli’s brilliant header ensured the Gunners had the lead at the break and they eased through the gears in the second period as Rob Holding, making his first start since December, Joe Willock and Reiss Nelson extended the advantage. In the dying moments, Martinelli, with the aid of a slight deflection, rounded things off with a long-range effort.
After three wins on the bounce and with Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin getting vital minutes on their return to full fitness, the boss was full of positivity.
Asked if it was the ‘perfect’ evening, he told his post-game press conference: “Yes, really for different issues.
“One is that the competition is important for us, it’s one title and it’s one opportunity for different players to take confidence, to take minutes and be helping us like tonight.
“And after, because I think the game was for us in 90 minutes very consistent and some different players gave us their performance.
“Also Rob Holding came back after injury and also after injuries, Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin.
“I think this was a good match, a good result, a good game and with a clean sheet there are a lot of positive things. We can be positive with different options for the next matches.”
He added: “We need to improve a lot of things and tonight I think we done a step in the right direction.
“We gave minutes to some players, got a good result and kept a clean sheet. I think they are a very organised team Nottingham Forest, but tonight they played a lot of players who didn’t play in the starting XI.
“We need to create our style, our way and our idea with the confident to achieve the best performance. We need to improve for the next matches, for example against Manchester United.
“It will be very difficult and very tough so we need to achieve the best performance, but with the work tonight of some of our players, they are ready to play more difficult matches. We need to build a competitive team with a strong mentality at home and away.
“We can improve and I am very positive we’re going to do that. Tonight and on Sunday we showed a good character, a good attitude and a good spirit. In Emirates with our supporters we created a good atmosphere.”
Sounds like a man who’s been ‘
spoken’ to about the teams structure, playing style, mentality and goals conceded
fairly good ebening
These kids are great. They play better football than than their seniors. They were so organised and cohesive. Their play was like poetry– an excellent poem.
The senior team gets satisfied at 2-0 up and start playing badly. The young guys just trash you. They are ruthless.
It’s because Unai isn’t their coach.
More of that please !
Don’t you dare 😉
? Amazon
? Indonesia
? Australia
? Nottingham
Ozil is fast fading. He didn’t even complete 90minutes in an efl game. I feel sad for him
He really has a fine match and seemed to be enjoying himself in the second half and was naturally unhappy to be subbed. You obviously watched a different player to the one I saw
It’s as if Emery hopes Ozil doesn’t have a good game through deliberate design.
We turned it up a notch after he’d gotten subbed.
He was fine, but we were better without him.
This is actually the first time we got our midfield & back four right! The players are mobile & in sync with each other. The link up play between attacking & defending is perfect.
Pleased to hear Emery say the competition is important for us. Any trophy is important for the fans and for the team, and it’s a quarter of a century since we last won the League Cup. Time for another one.
For some unknown reason, Forest sat back, allowing Arsenal to control tempo and possession. Which is why dead weight like Özil actually looked decent. Surprising tactics considering that we’ve been discombobulated and error-prone against high-pressure all season.
Lovely result, everyone played well. Martinelli has some seriously quick feet and seemingly a nice hunger for goals. Chambers must be pushing himself into Premier League consideration now and Mustafi nearly scored the goal of the season with that back heel volley. Also great to see the Tierney,Holding and Hector out on the pitch and playing well
Excited for Martinelli also for his two goals.
Hope he can take few loads from Aubameyang who seems to be constantly playing full minutes.
Let’s play these guys against united, I think they’d do the job easily, and it’ll give one or 2 of the senior guys a much needed kick up the arsenal. I know it’s only forest, but if united play like they did on Sunday, finally revenge for the drubbing we got a few years back.
Seriously, so much more balance and structure to that midfield. I’d be tempted to run with Torreira (DM) – Willock (CM) – Guendouzi (CM) against Manure on their patch to be even stronger in recovery and stay structured. The ability of Guendouzi and Willock and drive past players opens up so much space and allows our attacks room and speed – and then all of those three recover so well defensively we are stop counter attacks instead of being a liability against them every time the opponents have a little space.
Me too Dave, but I’d rather put Ceballos a bit in front of Torr and Guen, instead of Willock.
I understand that probably gives us a little more creativity and I’m ok with that. But it’s a real tough call for the CM role (DM-Torreira; CAM-Ceballos) between Douzi and Willock – Willock has impressed me so much I’d personally put him in. Still I think away at Old Trafford I’d still go with size, structure, and strength over a little more creativity and use the Torreira-Willock-Guendouzi trio. That trio is custom built to attack hard and fast on the break and recover to prevent Manure doing the same as easily – I think if Xhaka plays we’ll get crushed… Read more »
What does taking positive have any good when the next EPL game, Unai will still insist of playing Xhaka, Luiz and co. What will he change in term of his strategy? We had seen that having a mobile base of Torreria and Willock is much better than Xhaka sitting in the base of midfield. We have seen that having a natural nuber 10 would be a good connected between attack and midfield so they will not be a huge gap between them. We had seen that controling the match is much more important than sitting deep inviting pressure and waiting… Read more »
Majority of those young players are WENGER players!! Period.
It’s a full stop
It’s more of a question mark, really.
Xhaka, Mustafi, and Ozil are also Wenger players.