Unai Emery says Arsenal will learn from today’s 2-2 draw with Watford after they were bullied out of three points by an abject second half performance.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang netted a brace to put the Gunners on course for a win but horrific defending, namely from experienced centre-back duo Sokratis and David Luiz, allowed the hosts back into things.
By the end, ridiculously, we were clinging on for a point.
After the game, the boss faced Sky Sports. Here’s what he said.
On what went wrong…
It was two different halves. The first half we were winning 2-0 and controlling the match like we wanted. The second half, they pushed it. With their supporters, they pushed for our mistakes. We did more than we wanted to do and the second half, really, is for me, for us to give a lot of information about how we can improve, do our way better. Really, our way needs to work for a lot of things. But it’s not a good result after being 2-0. The second half they pushed, physically, very strong and they give us that bad moment and they draw.
On his side playing out from the back…
Long balls, physically they were more strong than us. They were winning that ball also. Our way was to break the first line and connect with Mesut [Ozil] and the second goal, we did. After that, we cannot take our chances to score and win. We needed a third goal because if they score, with their supporters and their motivation today, they can take, as they did, this result.
On being, in the words of Granit Xhaka, ‘scared’…
It’s [down to a lack of] experience. We have a lot of young players, who had those moments, for example, Matteo [Guendouzi], but he is working a lot to improve and he’s going to take experience with matches like today. Sometimes it’s coming with bad results and some mistakes but we can grow up with the mistakes and really learn for the next matches.
On whether he’s concerned by the 31 shots had by Watford…
We were saying that two-nil was not enough. We were speaking about that. We needed in the second half to do the same work as in the first but knowing that they would push more. They did that. We cannot in some moments break the lines to take confidence in our game.
On how concerned he is…
My concern is to continue our way working and improving. We need to improve. We need to take some information from that match. And also, we can be dissapointed. We will learn from that.
On whether he can coach mental strength and character…
Watford was a good team. We spoke and said good first half but it’s not enough. We should not give them chances to come back. But it can happen and it happened.
Literally didn’t answer any of the questions.
I really think we need a new managee
He should speak in spanish.
This bs about being brave to try english is nonesense.
People want to hear an intelligible and meaningful press conference. Not gibberish.
But in a way he did, answering in his own way.
Really mayor? You also didn’t say anything really, that can be said about anyone. What are you talking about??
“We needed a third goal”
Really!! If thats how many Emery thinks we needed against the bottom team then how many do we need against the top teams.. You never have this team a chance mr. There was no compactness, defense and attack were miles apart leaving midfield to deal with 5 or 6 attackers each time. Watford were absolutely
Rubbish tbh, or this could’ve been an another beating.
He did answer, “the second half, really, is for me, for us to give a lot of information about how we can improve.” Clearly, after a year that inform is quite simply not getting through.
Very sad but I am convinced he does’t know how to set up the team and get the best out of them. He need to go. I hope the powers that be act quickly because its not going to get better
Then fucking grow-up.
With all the mistakes and goals we gift, we should be the grand old daddy of the league!
If only we could be like the old lady in italy that dominates their own league
We growing up with the mistakes. As we grow up the mistakes grow as well, and UE likes that by the sound of it.
Water is wet. You grow up
This is a manager who let a 4 goal lead slip in the champions league. Are we really surprised?
Just stop talking you stupid stupid man
Relax…..take it eeeaaaaaaaaseeyyyy
So much anger and shouting on this site today. It’s to be expected, I suppose, but–since we’re on the subject–not very grown up.
Hmmm… Football is about emotions, you know, mayor?? Or are you so full in your ego where your opinions should only matter as usually, so people don’t behave the way you think they should? This was masterclass disaster, we playrd with no identity or plan, let 31 shots from a very average team and were lucky to not lose. Reasons to feel disappointed at least, and some.feel angry..i resigned myself after coward approach against lpool and spuds to the fact that emery is not the level for us and am waiting for his sack. So I have less to be… Read more »
‘Watford is a good team…..’ I dread to think what will happen under this coaching regime when we actually play a good team.
but weirdly, we play up or down to whichever side we face. liverpool and spuds didn’t even look as good as we made Watford look today. it’s like we figure out exactly how to play to the strengths of the other team, it’s fucking maddening.
I mean played Liverpool and literally set up our team just allow their left and right back to bomb forward constantly. the two fullbacks who had like a shitload of assists between them last season……I don’t know what our formation is or our style of play?
So we knew that a 2 goal lead is NOT enough against Watford??…Oh well, we need to brace ourselves this year lads! If we don’t score 3 or 4 we should accept that we may not win the game…
even 3 or 4 doesnt seem enough with our trio
So if he knew two goals weren’t enough, why take out the two guys that might give him the best chance to set up said goal?
To be fair on Emery, I think he’s trying to say we needed to play better despite being 2 goals up. So he probably didn’t expect us to score during the first half. Thanks to “our way”. I’m looking forward to who the coach will be next season.
Namedropping Guendouzi as the ‘scared’ one is just plain out of order. He was the only one who stood up to that twat cholevas at the end of the first half. It was Luiz and Socratis who looked frightened and completely out of their depth.
He’s trying to hide behind our younger players, because he knows that when Luiz, Sokratis and Xhaka make mistakes it’s on him.
Name me one team with our current squad without these players that is better than one with them. Can you drop all 3? Who is gonna play? Mustafi Holding_U23 and Elneny?
Chambers, Holding and Luiz in midfield. Might as well.
Good shout. Hopefully things will get better when Bellerin and Tierney are available. Those two with Holding and Chambers must surely improve thing’s.?. Problem is he still hasn’t got any balance in midfield. I’d try 4 3 3. With Luiz, Guendozi and Cellobas in midfield and Auba,Laca and Pepe..
And he is scared of Luiz, sokratis and xhaka, this emery
I was unfortunate to watch Sp*rs play yesterday, and I said to my brother during the game, I can’t remember the last time Arsenal won this comfortably in the league and just had a stroll in the second half.
Only for us to go out and serve up a shower of shit just 24 hours later.
I swear, if I was any of Auba or Laca, I would be fed up with this team.
I couldnt say it any better it’s a matter of time before they up and go
We havn’t seen much growing up from the ones that preceded them, so what makes these mistakes any different. Pure drivel.
Exactly Luis and Sokratis are experienced players and shouldn´t do these freakish mistakes at the first place. They shouldn´t need to learn and grow so much at their stages of careers. I am up for trying Holding and Chambers instead of them.
We should have grown with last season’s million mistakes.
It’ll be very hard to trust Emery again.
fuck yeah grow up, don’t play out from the back till you have bellerin and holding back. we looked so stupid all second half playing out from the back.. worst substitutions so far. … poor poor away day and only Emery to blame
Yes. If we are so “scared”, why do you put our younger players into an away game at 1-2 where Watford has the momentum? Maybe this will be good for them?
We don’t have the passers nor the technique for playing out of the back . We don’t play in space very well so it seems.
Xhaka was the one who came up with that scared bs.
If you’re captain speaks like that, you ban him, you send him to the U23, then in January window you get rid.
you make sure such mentality does not get up on the pitch.
Doesn’t matter who said they were scared. They played like they were scared, and Emery should have picked up on that. Putting in Willock and Nelson was a complete gaffe. How were these young guys going to reintroduce some stability to our side?
I’m not even going to talk about the Ceballos substitution.
If I owned the team I would go down to the lockerroom and fire him before he had the time to close the door.
To be overrun by a team in the bottom of the league like this….
What a shit coach. Give the job to ljungberg or a random guy on in the stands. Whatever!
Spot on. He’s clueless. Over a year now and he still doesn’t have a clue about his best system. Four centre mids in the team today . No balance. Square pegs in round holes. The players don’t look fit enough. Every single player looks like they’ve got a mistake in them. Every game. Get shot now.
Thats exactly what happened to him at Spartak Moscow.. The owner fired him in the dressing room infront of all the players.
Surely it’s time to start Holding and Chambers together?
Agree . Luiz could play DM . Team lacks balance.
Our system (and terrible left and right backs) will expose any CB’s. Errors are inevitable if they have to absorb so much pressure all game long
This guy is like a robot. Is he?
Emery out.
It seems every week, whoever we play, we gift them chance after chance. And every week he says the same thing but we do not learn. I dont blame the players, there’s worse defenders than ours that are able to be more solid than we are.
This has been going on for year’s now.!!!!!!!
If I can’t understand what Emery is trying to get across in terms of style, attitude or tactics… I wonder if the players feel the same.
Still, no excusing Sokratis or David Luiz today. Horrid mistakes.
Get rid of this turd.
What the hell is he saying? I can’t seem to understand anything he has said the same way I can’t understand his tactics and style. Shame.
Blogs said it before. Word salad.
So confusing, just like his playing ‘style’.
Any idiot can see that defensively we’re not improving in the sense that we keep on making fucking stupid individual mistakes.
If its not Mustafi, it’s Xhaka. If it’s not Xhaka, it’s Sokratis. If not Sokratis, it’s Luiz.
We have so many defensive players capable of fucking up at any given moment. If the coaching was working we would already be getting better, but we’re not.
There is nothing we’re not seeing this season that we didn’t know already, last.
“If its not Mustafi, it’s Xhaka. If it’s not Xhaka, it’s Sokratis. If not Sokratis, it’s Luiz”
The arsenal liability tombola, just turn the tombola drum a few times before kick off and pick a name out see if it matches by 90 minutes, 1 in 4 chances of a win
Maybe Emery benched Chambers to save him being sucked into that vortex of ineptitude?
It’s the system that makes these players a lot worse than they actually are. Emery hasn’t helped any of them at all.
He looks like he’s out of his depth. Just making up as he goes along. Team was a Ozil accommodation yesterday. Like playing with ten men.
Time to go. Quite embarrassing he’s still here after last season’s end mind, but he’s making this club a laughing stock. Bottom placed sides know they can have 30 shots at Arsenal, absolutely shambolic coach. He doesn’t deserve this club
To be fair to Emery, we were a laughing stock long before he arrived. He just hasn’t lifted us out of it the way we hoped he might have.
The scales have finally tipped for emery, the patience has run out it seems
we are out of the honeymoon period
buckle up
The reality though is that we keep making these mistakes and NEVER LEARN. Plank!!!
“My concern is to continue our way working and improving.”
If we continue your way then we will go down and down the table.
Improving? No we are not.
Under Wenger we attacked and attacked, we were shit defensively.
Under Emery we don’t know how to attack and we are worse defensively.
That’s some improvement…
He is an extremely poor tactician. We are a poor team with good players. We’ve seen this film before. 29 shots conceded against Watford! Watford? Fuck Elton John.
In the second half, we were like a candle in the wind.
I’m sure he wouldn’t mind that..
But it can happen and it happened, OH WELL LESSON LEARNED LADS GUESS WE SHOULDN`T DO THAT AGAIN.
Watch this man get sacked by Christmas.
can it be tomorrow please?
You know it’s bad when you’re wishing for Monday!
I wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t our manager anymore.
Why picked on Guendouzi? He made mistakes alright but ‘scared’ is obviously not his flaw. Not cool to sling out young players like that while the experienced like Xhaka and two clown defenders were much worse.
The manager is a complete fraud. He bought Luiz and oversees playing out from the back with players not good enough to do it. Top 4 is there for the taking – is Emery really the right man to grab it?
Hes still in fantasy world playing from the back with such horrendous defence. Teams have learnt from how liverpool tormented the defence. Why even bring in softie kids running around clueless, selfishly and shoved off the ball now and then. Giving stupid excuses as usual. Xhaka dumbest captain happy with a point. Where’s the ambition??? Maitland is a disaster.
Fuck off with your new lying teeth and you passing out from the back for 89 minutes when the players are clearly wobbling every time they do it!!
It’s moronic, same mistakes over and over again. This ridiculous insane playing out from the back for every single goal kick. FFS…. Vary it, keep them guessing, I’m furious, f’in fuckin furious!!!!
Taking off Ceballos was criminal. Subbing on the inexperienced Nelson and Willock, in a game where we’re getting bombarded with shots every three minutes, was also a big error. Pepe desperately needs a goal; I’d start him again on Thursday in the Europa. Sad to say this but at least Everton, Leicester, and Wolves all lost in that race for European qualification.
I’m concerned about his answers! We still had plenty of experience. Socrates has loads and still made a massive mistake he shouldn’t have made. If you don’t have an easy pass out from the back play it over the fucking top. Surely they aren’t told to play out from the back no matter what? It’s surely got to be situational? Why say 2-0 isn’t enough? Surely a team like Arsenal that should be playing for a top 4 spot against a team bottom of the league that’s only previously scored 2, should be more than comfortable at 2-0 up! That… Read more »
Prepare you mind for the worst, with what I saw today we do not have what it takes to challenge for the top four. I don’t understand why we can’t score 4 when we have the advantage.Emery is not the man to take us there, he can win some games tomorrow, but he won’t win us any trophy.
You would be giants if you grew with the mistakes…
Cant wait for the player ratings to be posted!
Hello unai Emery, can you listen to the fans for once? Stop your useless play from the back. Defence is NOT our strength, for goodness sake. So Shaky. If today’s game doesnt convince you, then nothing else will. Play to our strength which is the attackers. Its the best form of defence.
Shut the f**ck up!
That second half performance from us disgraced the premier League, let alone the champions League where we think we should be playing. Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhhhh!
Not being funny but the guy has had two years to learn English and this is still the best he can do, that’s very worrying especially considering he’s probably had professional tutors and plenty of time to learn. For me this says a lot about his ability to adapt and it’s no wonder there are rumours that the players don’t seem to know what he wants them to do. There just isn’t any semblance of a style or pattern to our way of playing. This could end up being a long season.
I won’t comment on language being an issue. But to be honest the players are probably confused because they’re constantly playing a new formation there doesn’t seem to be any consistency and identity so players don’t have a chance to work in a consistent system and get confidence like in Klippel system. The only discernible thing we do is play from the back poorly.
Fuck Emery.
Fuck Xhaka.
Fuck Sokratis
Fuck Luis.
Fuck playing from the fucking back shit.
And if you’re down with any of the above fuckers, fuck you too!
Thats a lot of fucking
Don’t blame it on lack of experience, this loss was on the veterans (Ozil for lack of effort on defense, Sokratis for the awful pass/decision that led to their first goal, Luiz for his dumb foul, Xhaka for being awful in general, Emery for not making any tactical adjustments, the team in general for lack of effort/intensity, etc.) and of you Emery. It’s great to play it out of the back, but do it with a freaking purpose instead of a five yard ball to a center back within the 6 and then playing a ball right into pressure at… Read more »
We might as well blame it on the boogie? We’re doomed! Doomed I tell ya…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxqvwkmTNy8 gotta laugh…:-)
Don’t understand his team selection or tactics…the players certainly don’t. Same shit different manager
Emery actually scares me.
I mentioned on this platform after the Liverpool loss that I have seen enough to suggest that Emery is not the right manager to take us forward. At this point, If I were on the Arsenal board, I will try and get him sacked as early as tomorrow morning. We can’t afford to gamble with another season. The fact we will be competing in the Europa league for the third season running is depressing enough. Take away Aubameyang’s goals and we should be hovering just above the relegation zone. This is clearly not good enough. We are Arsenal football club… Read more »
Damn!
He tries the diamond formation 1 more time please sack him.
Bla, bla, bla, bla, blaaa…#EmeryOut
Im finding some of the comments offensive. What are we 16 years old? Emery is not a c*nt. He doesnt need to f*ck himself. He’s a manager out his depth. He takes small clubs and gets them to punch above their weight. He was a bad choice from the go (shoot me, but I would have much preferred Arteta then. And even more so now). It’s clear he is losing the fan base – probably quite rightly. But a bit of respect for someone who seems to be clearly a good guy but out his depth, please. This online rhetoric… Read more »
Well said
Just like watching an Arsene Wenger team towards the end of his era. Can someone please explain to me how we have improved? More like Dick Emery cos he just isn’t taking us forward. Same old Arsenal