Unai Emery says he thinks his team are improving defensively, and that the recent clean sheets in the Europa League and Carabao Cups have been ‘important’.
In the Premier League though, the Gunners have conceded in six of their seven matches, only managing a shut-out on the opening day in the 1-0 win over Newcastle.
However, the Arsenal boss believes he can see green shoots, and also insists that he sees his side’s primary focus as an attacking team.
“I think we are progressively getting better and in the last few matches we had some important clean sheets,” he said.
“In the last match against Manchester United we conceded only one goal, and I think we are improving.
“I want us to be a competitive team defensively and offensively, but above all, the first characteristic for us is to be offensive, to have the ball and control the matches.
“But it’s about balance and we also need to be strong defensively. Defensively we want to keep more of the ball and be further away from our goal and pushing them.”
As for his personnel, he has been boosted by the returns of Rob Holding, Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin, and insists he’s happy with the business we did in the transfer market this summer from a defensive perspective.
“We signed David Luiz, an experienced player in the Premier League, and we have also an experienced player in Sokratis,” he continued.
“Calum Chambers came back to us after his season with Fulham, and we also had Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin to come back from their injuries. We also signed Kieran Tierney.
“We did all we can and I’m very happy with them. We now have more possibilities and I think as a team we are more competitive with more players and more options.
“We are going to play a lot of matches and defensively now we have the players we wanted in the summer.”
Nice. #emeryout
Seconded.#Emeryout
Fans ?
☢️ ☠️
No shit Sherlock! All you have to do is pick the right players!
Emery doesn’t even understand his. He keeps setting up an attacking team to play defensive. Use the right personnel and the team’s cup form will return automatically. Play either of Luiz or Sokratis with either of Holding or Chambers. Play Torreira as a defensive player.
So Emery doesn’t understand football tactics? But you do? Remind me what you do for a living?….. Holding has been coming back from a big injury, as have Bellerin + Tierney, we are essentially missing 3/4 of our first choice back 4. Once Holding has been eased back from injury, and given minutes in the cup to get up to speed, I’m sure he’ll be given opportunities in the league But playing players coming back off long term injuries twice in 3 days, is playing with fire….. Playing 3 central midfielders away from home, isn’t the drama people are making… Read more »
I think Emery is a decent manager, but his infatuation with Granny Xhaka is going to be his un-doing. There is a time and a place for Xhaka (Europa games, and games against teams that really try to play possession football – probably a decent decision today), but he is completely unsuited to playing in a fast, free-flowing game of EPL football and he forces our whole team to play away from our strengths when he is out there and forces others to cover his weaknesses too. Emery’s obsession with this guy will be his failure unless he finally wakes… Read more »
He is the Swiss captain, ranks better than fenandinho, in world rankings. Currently worth 65m, the best no.6. He reads the game and has a tough battling mentality.
the first characteristic for us is to be offensive, to have the ball and control the matches…
How can you trust a guy that says stuff like that and then sets his team up the way he does? The gigantic difference between what he says he wants to do and what he does has been the most consistent characteristic of his tenure, which, no matter what you think of the guy, is pretty scary.
maybe someone pranked him when teaching him english?
We are 3rd, only lost to Liverpool and 1 point behind the champions. Obviously you are a Spurs fan. Leave Emery alone.
Let’s see what’s gonna happen in the Burnemouth match!
If we have more of the ball we will concede less shots. We need midfielders who are technical enough to make space for themselves and smart enough to know when to recycle possession. We also need to cut out our silly errors from passing it to our players who are under pressure from the opposition.
Yeah, like Xhaka does, always playing the ball to the players under pressure and eventually resulting in possession loss. Emery insistence with Xhaka is hurting Arsenal in the midfield, defense as well as offense. I don’t know what he sees in him.
Our defence is bad.
Fortunately it’s about to get a serious upgrade. Then we can get back to kicking some arse.
I hope so.
He makes no sense, is completely out of his depth and has no idea what he’s doing.
Better managers would get more out of such a decent group of players, regardless of what you’d want to say about that back 4. We are dysfunctional in attack and in complete shambles defensively. #EmeryOut
Are you talking about Arsenal? Or man u and Tottenham. Arsenal are 3rd, being European champions and EPL champions!!!
Why haven’t you guys at arseblog published this on your site:
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/arsenal-mesut-ozil-per-mertesacker-unai-emery-illness-a9106101.html
This practicaly settles the whole debate on Ozil.
Strange.
“Unai is fair to everyone. You need to deliver a certain fitness level – then you are available to play”
“Unai tries to get through to him. He talks to him. He says: ‘You need to train to a certain level every day – I need you to be fit – otherwise you are not going to play.’
Blimey, turns out Emery is a nice guy.
You’d think Emery had ordered Ozil to be paraded through the streets naked, whilst being whipped by Jose Mourinho the way some fans react.
Ozil is finished at the top level, hopefully we can ship him out permanently in January to the States
the article claims ozil is sick, but nowhere does per confirm that.
stuggling with fitness and being ill arent mutually exclusive.
could be too much fortnite/doughnuts/NoS for all we know.
That article is three weeks old, published before the Watford game.
and?
Because the actual truth need to stay out of public scrutiny while some is to keep scape goating Unai. No wonder a certain Deeney talked about “Mojo” sometimes ago. While asking him who’s got the mojo now, I will still tell Ozil that we love and respect him but it’s time to “man up” to reclaim his position. The time of it being a “right” under Wenger is long gone and like Mert rightly pointed out in this thread, Emery requires a certain fitness level for you to play in his team and so it’s nothing personal like some Ozil… Read more »
He has always been very good when played this season…
This was 3 weeks ago
Last season. United – Arsenal. Last dub: Suarez enters. Özil on the bench. Now we know Suarez has never been more than 50% fit.
Classic Emery double speak. I don’t trust a word coming out of his mouth.
Oh, you should not use Suarez. A player called Emery’s pet. Yet Emery played him exactly 59 minutes in overall. Yeah, he deemed him not fit, and so without hesitation he benched his signing, for the good of the club.
I don’t believe it! Who is this guy? What are his credentials? I’ve been an Arsenal fan since 2013, which is a long time to support a club, much longer than this so called manager has been here. Why does nobody ask me how to best set-up our team? I’ve watched lots of our games on my Mum’s TV, I have three different shirts – even a retro one from Ozil’s first season. I think I can say I am an expert on Arsenal. Who is this guy? #emeryout. Wenger was much better in my opinion, there was a man… Read more »
Is that a slight hint of sarcasm..
Brilliant
Alright, you can get your head out of Emery’s arse now.
You claim to be an Arsenal fan but rather sounded much like a fanatical Ozil fan. If you so desire to, you can leave with him when he eventually moves on.. Emery will go if/when he clearly fails to deliver. Until then, let’s support the club ARSENAL above individual players. Unless of course you’re just being sarcastic in your post?
Mekus nwanne
The point>>>>>>>
You<<<<<<<<<<<
Duno Nwoke oma, it is to be tagged ‘Reverse Analogy”.
If you know, you know.
Kaa nka.
One can hardly distinct clearly if AussieGooner was being sarcastic or real in this case, anyways. So it’s neither here nor there. I don’t mind thumb downs now and then, so long we keep winning.
Satire
When spurs fans come here, they don’t understand what they are saying. Arsenal is 3rd, only lost one game. Man city has lost 2. Leave Emery alone, We don’t change managers like Chelsea or man u, we are arsenal.
in the last match vs manchester united we conceeded only one goal, and that was vs a team with no recognised senior strikers available, just imagine what we can achieve vs a team with at least one!……………………
Yer I look back at the game v Watford and we nearly lost but managed a draw, then see man city put 8 past them and thought fu*k how many would they put past us???
Is the offensive focus relying on Auba to score?
If messi scores 50 that’s brilliant, if auba scores 30, arsenal is relying on him. We sold Giroud because we could not rely on him for goals. So we need to bring him back and sell auba…ArseSpurs fans you are funny!
I think, he is just kidding and battling (as me) with his English (sorry about that) 😉 . Otherwise, I can’t get it. Or UE must be talking about some other team. 🙂 Before today’s match against Bournemouth, we concede 18 shots against per game. The most from the EPL. In general, our defensive stats are the worse ones in EPL (e.g. lots of dispossession together with 2nd most action zone percentage in own third are the cause of those 18 shots against per game and big chances allowed). Luckily for us, Bern Leno is in the good shape this… Read more »
OMG, does he not realize that the team keeping clean sheets are not playing in the prem games??? Maybe if they did play we would keep clean sheets in the prem to