Arsenal’s away day woes continued with a damaging, disappointing 1-0 defeat to Sheffield United at Bramall Lane this evening.
A first half goal from Lys Mousset was enough to give the Blades the win. Nicolas Pepe missed a great chance to put the Gunners ahead, after what was our best piece of football on the night, but after that it was the usual staid, uninspiring performance that is becoming the default for Unai Emery in the Premier League.
The player ratings don’t really reflect much, because it feels much more like a problem with the system and how we’re being sent out to play than the players themselves.
This one is 100% on the manager.
Read the Sheffield United 1-0 Arsenal report and see the goal here.
Here’s how the players rated this evening.
Ratings
The ratings are now hidden by default until you vote, but if you just want to view the ratings and the comments, flick the switch at the top above Bernd Leno. Also, give the ratings a few seconds to load.
10 / 10 Getting reminded of the glorious Eddie every time McGoldrick got the ball.
0 / 10 The clown pundit on my NBC stream who thought it was hilarious when that prick decided to bodycheck Pepe, leaving him needing treatment in a heap on the ground.
As terrible as our overall performance was, and as terrible as his miss was, I thought Pepe’s first half performance was one of the few positives on an awful day
He wasn’t bad but every time he got the ball in an attacking position our attack fizzled out into nothing.
I hate to admit it. But that seems to be increasing true
I have to agree with you – without Ceballos/Ozil and Willock a left wondering a bit, i thought he was our best and at times only creative outlet. I like that he brings it into the middle a bit more now that he realises hes got not alot of help out wide. You have to get a boot to that though *facepalm*
Pepe is doing his job pretty well, ghosting past players with ease but he is doing it to far off from the opposition box. If he does that around their box he’ll create chaos. But the problem is we lack control to pin opposition back in their half and he hardly has anyone to link with. Laca, with his hold up play droping in no10 might bring the best out of him.
Fuck Pepe, my nan’s nan’s nan would have put that away. He needs to grow a pair and just start playing. Pathetic.
Every player in the world misses those chances sometimes. Even your Messi or Ronaldos.
Overall he was certainly out most threatening player
He has 1 goal in 11 matches and that was a penalty that was gifted to him…Time to expect more from this guy.
Hi George, your nan’s nan’s nan sounds awesome, why isn’t she playing in the premiership?
Pepe was for me really disappointing. The one footedness meant that every time he actually went down the flank he had to check back onto his left foot to cross the ball. He continually cut towards goal – into the 3 man Sheff Utd defence – when the space was in the full back areas. I’m wondering if it might be better the play him on the left flank let him put in some low crosses and cutbacks to Auba and Laca. I really do believe he would be more effective there.
Think we have that tactic covered on ther left with Kola and Tierney.
Once a fit Bellerin comes back it changes the dynamic. The defender has to decide whether to let Pepe cut in and shoot/ pass or go with Bellerin overlapping on the outside. At the moment the defender knows there is no threat to worry about on the outside.
Take 3 off every rating.
Yes Sead the top four race is wide open, it’s just we’re not in it. Fucks sake!
Literally every time they come out to talk tough after a string of rivals have dropped points, they go on to pay absolute crap and miss the opportunity to capitalize on other results.
It was Xhaka last year before his brain fart against Brighton.
We should be six ahead of the spuds and about 8 ahead of united. But they both gained a point on us instead.
We’re not finishing top-4 as it stands. No chance. Book it.
I want Emery gone, the sooner the better. That’s not football out there, it’s just not. They are far less than the sum of their parts. Do we attack well? No. Do we defend well? No. Do we take set pieces well? No. Do we hold possession well? … you get the picture.
Put Freddy in as interim for all I care. Nothing to lose.
Spot on. As long as we have Guendouzi and Xhaka as our deep playing midfielders we ll struggle to create as simple as that.
I currently dislike the manager of my own team more than any other figure at any other premier league club (player or coach). This really isn’t good.
My sentiments exactly. This ship is sunk with him in charge and yet we are stuck with him until January at best. Depressing
You know there’s no transfer windows for managers, right? 😉
Nah fuck it. Kick him out now and let the new man figure out the/some/any needs till january.
Freddie could handle it until a new manager is brought in.
First things first though, Raul has got to have a talk with Emery. Pronto.
Huh?! Yeah…i get that u are angry and stuff but are u aware that john terry, fat frank and solskjaer coaching clubs while lingard, alli and marcos alonso are still alive?
0/10 Unai Emery. 18 months and still doesn’t have a tactical grasp of premier League football.
The Spanish David Moyes.
Emeryball.
Embarrassing.
I’ve given Emery every chance I can.
Now I see, fully and once for all, that certain aspects of his approach (conservative lineups, too much tinkering) are simply NOT going to change.
A penny for Edu’s thoughts.
Enrique is the plan for long-term replacement, if Raul has his way. Who knows though.
Freddie is more than capable and ready to take this thing over tomorrow.
Over to you, Josh!
Basil Brush could do a better job than Emery right now…
Get on to the BBC right now…
Sorry…
My Mistake.
Get on to ITV right now…
Haha, boom!
I needed a laugh after that. Cheers.
I gave up watching after 15 mins, it was so predictable. I never did that under Wenger, even in the final horrible months of his time.
There were far more enjoyable uses of my time, so instead I put on some beautiful new Look Keo Blade Carbon pedals on my super-fast Giant TCR Advanced racing bike which I will give a test some time later today.
Ooh whats the TCR like? I was debating whether to save for that or the Ribble r872…
May I respectfully point out that our football quality has descended to the point where the player ratings forum becomes a cycling blog!
Get the TCR; fast and rib-punchingly aggressive, compliant, comfortable, and cheaper than the alternatives.
Emery couldn’t survive in Fifa 16.
This felt hopelessly predictable. Sideways passing with players reluctant to take on an opponent. Unai just doesn’t have the ideas and right mentality to make the difference.
I’m glad that I’ve said what need to be said about Unai Emery when he was winning points. Now that he lost the points, its really much easier to say it again that clueless Emery is not meant to manage Arsenal.
When are my ratings going to load? 🙁
This web server isn’t going to last the season at this rate.
Get a new one blogs! #server out
Waiting since yesterday night ?
I can’t scroll past the ratings on my iphone. I have to switch them on, read first 6 or 7, then turn them off and reload the page.
Did Xhaka get subbed off because he dared to take an actual shot at goal? I mean, a shot that doesn’t come from a fullback overlapping and chucking the ball in?
No to avoid the booking, unfortunately
Again!!
We had 2 shots on target from open play against Sheffield United, during the 90 minutes.
In the squad:
One of the best playmaker in the world.
2 out of the best 10 goalscorers in the world in the last 5 years.
+ The 19th most valuable forward in the world
Disastrous.
* 1 goalscorer
I am asking this in all seriousness. I never played football in my life but I’ve been an Arsenal supporter since 1996. What should Emery be doing differently? Give me three suggestions. No sarcasm please.
1 select a moderately less conservative lineup 1.5 play at least one creative player 2 train with a bit more conviction on an actual style of play or at least hammer down on what we actually want to do 3 maybe stop playing xhaka he is where fast counter attacks go to die 4 he said Tierney was ready? 5 maybe consider playing Ozil, it’s not working without him could it be worse with him? 6 why did ceballos not start? 7 motivate the team at half time some how 8 instead of taking Pepe off go with another striker,… Read more »
Infuriatingly, the kids press like a machine in the cups so there is some sort of instruction going on in training. Maybe Emery knows his youth team is better and so he uses the senior team to try and scrape 4th while keeping the kids fresh to win the cups.
The kids aren’t coached by Emery . . .
Not even steroids can fix that system
Billy!! I love you!! this is so Apt!!
Lol at people voting down somebody asking an honest question…! I would answer that I don’t honestly know, but then it’s not my job to know. I don’t know what is being said behind closed doors or in training sessions, so I don’t know the specific changes required. All we can do is look at the evidence we have, which is that we are boring at the moment; the team is playing without any attacking spark despite having a wealth of talen. We also seem completely unable to deal with a team that has a plan, seemingly having no plan… Read more »
1. Use a fast creative flair player at the CAM position. This person needs to create chances, move without the ball, and most importantly use tempo to panic the defense. 2. Instruct all defensive players to move out if playing an offside trap. The corner resulted in a goal due to Xhaka staying back. Everyone else but him and Leno push forward once the kick is taken. If he had moved forward the goal wouldn’t of counted. Knowing full well that Xhaka is the DM, either he didn’t know the plan or didn’t execute. Benchable offense. Especially with Torrera in… Read more »
Try for once to drop Xhaka. Play a mobile midfield of Torriera, Guendouzi, Ceballos/Ozil/Wilock Stop bloody playing out from the back with players who can’t dribble out of a tight press i.e- Kola, Chambers, PAPA. Because they have no confidence to try to dribble out, we end up just recycling back to Leno. Can someone name me ONE occasion we played out from the back and it had a positive outcome? Try to get the ball to pepe when he only has 1 man to beat. He comes too deep now and is marked out. Keep players like saka for… Read more »
Emery’s got a style of play. It’s called shit.
Shower of shit. Piles of it.
That’s all we have been served in the PL this season.
Pls do not insult sh*t, his style of play is worse than that. Clueless, coward, petty manager with no creativity or backbone, would have accepted a loss if we actually did attack the opposition
Please do not insult clueless, coward or petty. His style of play is worse than that. It’s a three-words philosophy “Kick me out”.
The word, you are searcing for is johnterry.
It is
Let’s go back to the old player ratings format from the Wenger days. This one takes too long to load.
Any chance we can add in a coach rating to this Blogs (seriously)?
I’d give a big fat 0/10 for this game and not much better for the rest of the season
People have been asking this as long as I can remember. I think maybe it’s not going to happen.
10/10 to arseblog servers probably getting absolutely hammered at the moment trying to load the pages. At least these servers are showing more heart then our team and Emery’s tactics
Just make the change now. Freddie until the of the season unless any big dogs fancy the job (which I doubt).
Not sure if the big circle on my screen is a giant zero or just ratings loading.
Two things to take away from this (yet again) insipid performance: 1) I like Unai but we need someone who is more demanding with the players. Blades newly promoted showed hunger and commitment we did not have. 2) Tactically, the build up was ponderous and lacked required urgency. Everything was TOO careful. Playing out from the back passing it around the edge of our box (we got a way with is several times). Gaffer needs to mix it up but we’ve been saying this for a while. So partly the players need to be held accountable. BUT chiefly it is… Read more »
I make that 16 things Santori
Thank you for counting the 16, I just scrolled past but nice to hear the summary
Santa – as ever, hidden within the mazey mumble of verbiage are some pithy observations. And then we get to your beloved Granit. Do you actually watch the games? He was marking NO-ONE for the goal. He drifted aimless off the middle of the goal toward the near post (where there was no threat). That left a gaping hole in the most dangerous area for Mousset. He then tracked the flight of the ball over his head, watched it drop for the header, saw Mousset take the space he’d just vacated… watched the header come back across goal to Mousset,… Read more »
I don’t mind the style so much in the sense that the most important thing for us this year is simply to get into the CL again = if we have to play ugly to do that then so be it. BUT we don’t seemingly have any real plan at this point = we’re playing ugly and not performing well. We have some really solid attacking players & the team isn’t going to be able to defend tight leads the way Emery sets them up (his insistence on playing Xhaka as a DM which then requires Gendouzi to run around… Read more »
Here’s my dream scenario: the cup team (who’re playing really fun football) wins the Europa league and we get cl football, but we finish outside the top four so emery gets kicked out. We get cl football and we get rid of emery. Win-win
Mike Dean was against us most of the game. The formation clearly was not working but he persisted with it for so long. Auba had no service at all. When we play away, especially to places like Sheff United, Wolves etc, we perform poorly and never like it up north!
Someone needs to come in and shake the place up.
This happens when the manager seems too bossy and avoids to do the simplest things. Why was Tierney not playing? Why is Torreira always on the bench? Ozil was not in this squad!!! Really?
Emery is simply a not good enough. For once, Xhaka and Mustafi wont be blamed cos we have no style of football.EmeryOut
Is he not good enough? The choices he makes seem like he is insane????
Thanks for the Emery’s.
But it’s time to go.
0/10 for Emery. He just miraculously gets everything wrong I don’t know how! Oh Pepe is playing well let’s take him off! Willock is the only midfielder who can score goals let’s substitute him for the Spanish drinkwater. And the masterclass playing your second best left and right back who can’t drive forward or cross a ball and then pass every ball to them just like every other game waiting for the cut back that never happened. ACTUALLY the only time it happened the pre assist was from özil who is certainly worse than saka at 10?!!!!!!
Wenger used to say we played “with a little bit handbrake”. Currently our whole team is playing with a lead ball and chain attached to both their ankles and asked to do a lot of pointless running without much end result.
So I wouldn’t really put too much into the player ratings, they’re only as good as the system they’re forced into.
Remember at the end of last season, there was a report that Ozil shouted to Emery “you’re not a coach”. It makes sense now.
I agree about the player rating system… 30 minutes and still loading!
Mike Dean put in a solid 8/10 for Sheffield Utd, although they didn’t need it against a toothless Arsenal. Bizarre bookings for simulation.
Mike Dean is a massive cee u next Tuesday but Sheffield needed no help tonight. We were predictably toothless, clueless and spineless.
The ratings server seems to be very very slow just like our football under Emery… We’re so dull and insipid. Worst of all Unai is so stubborn he still thinks he can make it work when it’s blindingly obvious this shite hasn’t worked week in week out
Emery looks like he has lost the players. No identity, no passion and fuck all tactics. He can take his hand waving, first pumping, false teeth wearing arse back to Spain. I’m sick of watching the same boring rubbish every week. Wenger got stick for never dropping Ozil, but Emery has his own undroppables – Luiz, Sokratis, Guendouzi, Xhaka – none of whom deserve to play week in week out but do. This is the unhappiest period of my life as an Arsenal fan. I’m jealous (cannot believe I’m admitting this) when I look over at Chelsea and see the… Read more »
From the lineup knew the game was gonna be shit. Glad i went to bed.
Consistent from emery
When midfield is the issue can we really justify not having Ozil at least on the bench? Not sure Ceballos is much better than Ozil. All he seems to add, that Ozil doesn’t, is visible passion.
Visible passion does not mean passion for the badge. Check Sanchez.
Emery Out
Two points to sum up Unai’s ineptitude as a manager
1. He is a defensive minded manager yet his teams are defensively poor.
2. 13 minutes to go in the match. Pepe comes off (our most dangerous attacking player in the match). Martinelli comes on, Saka plays as a ten, Auba on the right. 13 fucking minutes left!!!!! Instead of Martinelli for Saka on the left, Pepe on the right, Auba and Lacazette as a pair up top. It’s basic. Like Liverpool did in the dying minutes at Old Trafford. Un-fucking-believable.
You are right blogs, its the manager, the “system” he wants and the players he picks. Unai out, the sooner the better. Could get Rafa in for the season or give it to Freddy; lots of choices really. The football at the moment is dull, slow, tedious and unwatchable. Monday football is bad enough but this is dire and since it is the same week in week out there is really no point waiting for something to get better.
The problem with Emery is that he thinks success in the Europa league group stage equals success in the prem. The good news is that Emery’s refusal to play our best players will cost him his job at the end of the season. No torreria. No ozil. No ceballos in the first half. We could have played another hour and we wouldn’t have scored. Emery took a team that scored on a regular basis and turned them into a team that can’t string passes together. My favorite part of this match was 87th minute and we were playing backwards passes… Read more »
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*Godfather music begins playing*
So does Don Raul have him taken out to the middle of the lake before January or after?
Serious question… what’s Emery trying to do with this team? I hear a lot of “we’re in transition, he needs time, etc.” it’s been over a year and I have no idea what the instructions are to the players when they take the field. 2+ weeks to prepare for Sheffield and that’s the performance we get? Granted we should have had a pk for the pull on Sok (Luiz pull on Salah comes to mind) but what is the actual game-plan? Same performance as all season, only difference is no moment of magic from Auba. The ozil situation has been… Read more »
Transition connotes some sort of change and gradual movement towards another identity. We’ve morphed into something with no identity and it feels sudden.
It should also imply some understanding of what the design is. One year plus into this and no one knows what we’re trying to be and the coach can’t give a good explanation. This is why our patience is running out.
The most obvious Arsenal thing, when other top six teams fail, also fail. And Emerys lack of everything is so blatant obvious. But also, we really overperformed under wenger.
I guess thats what fathers feel like when they tell their kids not to fuck their cousins. At one point u feel kinda satisfied because u were right all along but on the other hand u are the grandad of a disabled child. I’ll get my vasectomie asap.
what?!
See arsenal used to be therapy for some fans.
As the arsenal are adding to your stresses instead might I suggest actual therapy?
Only thing worse then emery is the arseblog server as big as arseblog is why is he still using a server from the 90’s
🙁
Sorry guys – traffic was v heavy
Enough of this mess! Grab Allegri before United do!
Gave up waiting for the egg timer of doom to allow me to enter my player ratings for tonight’s shit show, only player worthy of any mention, Chambers, he’s not a rightback, but at least he’s busting a gut, which is more than can be said for the rest… I could have been watching a Wenger production with an almost entirely different team, but the same result ?
I want the people “give emery more time and 39 transfer windows to get it right people” here. Where are they?
I understood his class when he selected Xhaka as our captain and benched M10.
Ok please stop this new way of showing the ratings. I just doesnt load on browsers..even if it does its just too darned slow .. more sketchy than Arsenal at the moment. I just want to see the ratings and comments – not sure whats there to hide!
Please listen arseblog. 🙁
Hasn’t loaded since 11pm!
you should ask for your money back
Your name’s Jacob.
Didn’t watch the game as it was telecast post midnight here in India. We lost to Sheffield United! We all saw this coming i think. No Ozil on the bench! Emery treating him as if he’s a witch who’s mere presence will be a bad omen which will players to play creativity.
The only positive I can think of here is the game being on a Monday so my weekend doesn’t get f**ked.
Ratings still not loading (haven’t done all night..) But, it matters not. This lies squareky on Eberys shoulders. He is out of his depth at Arsenal, and in The Premier League. No plan, no tactics, leaves our most creative player out every game… Goodbye! Not my manager!
We play with cohesiveness of a rusty national team…
This is the third time I tried to load the ratings. Like our offense today its a whiff.
Another shambolic away performance. Emery got his team selection wrong again.
To be honest I don’t know what xhaka brings to the team that justifies his selection.
Tierney should have started over kolasinac and most alarming of all is the lack of an identity. He wanted to play out from the back and scrapped it.
We have a fantastic squad and two absolutely world class strikers. It’s a shame another season of their prime is being wasted by a manager who’s clearly out of his depth.
The player rater has failed, but to be honest I really give a damn. Does anybody else think the players are trying to get rid of Emery?
What will happen first? Arsenal changing a manager that hasn’t worked consistently over time work or arseblog changing a player rating system that hasn’t worked consistently over time? Or both just happy that it works for no pressure cup games?
The legend says Emery is still loading the ratings