Unai Emery says he wants to reconnect with the Arsenal fans, but has called on supporters to do their bit to make the Emirates a more difficult place for opposition teams to come.
It might be argued that our game plans, tactics, formations, systems and confused performances are a bigger issue in that regard, and there was an air of desperation in the head coach’s words as he met the press today.
The Gunners take on Eintracht Frankfurt in a game which could seal qualification for the knock-out stages, but without a win in over 50 days in all competitions, frustrations in the stands are understandably high.
That was not helped by another abject performance at the weekend where Alex Lacazette’s last gasp equaliser against Southampton did little but paper over the cracks.
Speaking ahead of the game, and acknowledging his needs to elicit better performances from his players, Emery called for the fans to help the team through this difficult period.
“I believe in us, the players, the group,” he said. “Each match is a good opportunity to do that. Most importantly it’s to connect with the supporters.
“They need to back and help the players tomorrow in each moment. Our confidence depends on how we can feel in our stadium with our supporters.
“The teams are coming here and playing fearless against us. This is the first thing we need to change. We need to change it and we need to be strong and we need to be together.
“I know we need to show our supporters our capacity and our skills. I know we’re not really showing that skill and performance 100 per cent with the players, but tomorrow we have a very good opportunity and we are going to try to change that.
“We were speaking about how we can improve and how we can change that and the first way of changing that is by being more compact. Then being confident we can show our skills, our quality.
“In the last matches, we’ve had tactical issues and we need to do better.
“Really, my wish is tomorrow that the supporters and every supporter helps the team because we need them.”
The emphasis on connecting with the supporters was also noticeable in Emery’s post-match reaction to the 2-2 draw against Southampton.
Whether it’s cynical, desperate, or something else, it all feels too little, too late for a head coach under immense pressure.
The emirates is going to be at 30-40% capacity looking at it.
I am sick of hearing how fans can make or break this team. Yes we can play a part but even behind close doors we should be beating teams 19th in the table.
play better football, get better support.
Get better support, play better football
Nope. What the guy above you said.
Nope. Other way around. We didn’t all wake up one morning and decide we weren’t happy Gooners. This situation has been evolving over time. If anything, we’ve been quite patient with him, in recognition of the fact that he was our first new coach in almost a quarter of a century!
I cannot understand how he’s managed to coach this team to be so god damn poor. It’s actually impressive. Never has so little been done with so much. 3 points from 15 this last month is absolutely criminal. Forget all 95 other coaches in the football league, a three month old could have done better picking names out of a hat. He has literally not improved any single aspect of the team in 18 months. It beggars belief.
The supporters will help u out
Yeah keep on passing the buck.
“the first way of changing that is by being more compact”
Sounds like some more thrilling football.
Do we have a long/official chant? From over here only the Arsenal! Arsenal! Arsenal! and some of the players’ chants can be heard. Something similar to Napoli’s (https://youtu.be/iNvOt2yDUI4) is what I mean.
He’s got bigger problems than the supporters
He seems worryingly confident and secure in his position
This guy is beyond clueless. So too are the people who appointed him. Everything to do with Arsenal is such a blackpill these days
Hasn’t got a cluenai emery
The Emery problem will come to an end soon, but we might have a Raul problem given the names being mentioned and how far he let this to continue.
I feel like Emery is maybe using a narrative of the nefarious Arsenal fans to hold onto his job. He’s always banging on about us like his shortcomings are our fault.
Let’s hope Edu sets Raul and Vinai straight on who we are because I can’t help but feel Emery is using us as a scapegoat for his inability to create cohesive performances.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Remember when he suggested that our problems were partly down to the young players? Or when he specifically singled out Pépé? Then Torreira, too? Let’s not even get into the whole Özil debacle.
I’ve got nothing against Emery personally, but he does seem to be in the habit of deflecting blame. Wenger used to take bullets for his players when speaking to the press. From what I can tell, this guy can’t jump out of the way quick enough.
Edit: I’ve got nothing against Emery on a personal level*
Personally, I’m very much in favour of cutting ties!
Reading that headline, i got visions of Auba receiving a through ball from Dave Jones the carpenter! ?
Ummm… with our defensive problems, I think a bricklayer might be more helpful, really.
We’ve given all we can, Unai. Only thing to do now is for you to leave, there is no support for you anymore.
No you haven’t mate. You haven’t given half you can for several years.
I like Unai, but if he’s lost the dressing room? Then it’s definitely time for a change, even though I’m not convinced our problems are fixed by simply changing our manager, our recruitment and scouting was shit for a long time, and that’s what we’re seeing the fallout from. First it was anyone but Arsene Now anyone but Unai The next move has to be the right one, I’d like us to go all out for Pochettino, and apparently he’s our first choice, but we can’t fall into the trap of just anyone would be better, because it’s unlikely to… Read more »
Sticking the knife in and booing is how fans get the board’s and the media’s attention.
Sticking the knife in, ey? So classy. I thought we were better than Chelsea, Spurs and Millwall?
We used to be. But now these supporters worship Adrian Durham, and do what he says.
Help as in like, make a big 2 million person defensive wall protecting the goal? Because at this point the rest is on them.
We support your departure
You’re a nice man but this is not the right fit. So, no. Bye.
He is not a nice man. Ask ozil
Ot Elneny
Or Mustafi. Or Torriera. Pepe. Willock. Saka. I posted before that I think he is quite willing to throw someone under the bus, and he continues to provide more evidence thus. He’s not a good fit for us.
#Emeryout
It’s your job to give the fans something to cheer about. It’s the same at every club. Serving up endless quantities of joyless, neurotic, ineffective football isn’t going to get any set of fans going.
I don’t care how many downvotes this gets, it has to be said. The best way we can help the club is by introducing a new chant to the Emirates:
Wenger In!
gets an upvote cos we’re in the land of absurdity now, actions no longer seem to have consequences, as long as you’ve got the right agent.
I would take Wenger back as a short term emergency option until the end of the season. He won’t improve the defence, but he’ll get the team playing offensive and at least having more shots than the opposition.
Yeah but that would require supporters to eat humble pie and admit they were wrong. And we all know that our supporters prefer to be “right” than to see the team succeed.
Emery leaving Arsenal will be my favorite birthday Gift tomorrow. Please Santa Claus, I need that gift tomorrow.
Santa is not in charge of birthdays unfortunately.
This is more for the executive committee and even then they might need to have a vote on it and of course need to take into account the cost of your gift etc.
Might get further delayed if there is disagreement within the committee members.
I would also put out a media statement saying you might run away from your parents/partners house, sometime this helps if they realize by the time they get the gift they might not have anyone to gift it to…
Yeah, my birthday was last Saturday and I tried that tack too. Didn’t work. Obviously. ?
Good Eberning;
This is our moment
This is our time
And we are not holding back
Were laying it all on the line
This is our destiny
It’s our night to shine
This is our moment
This is our time
He’s obviously afraid because he knows people might turn on him tomorrow, from what I see nobody wants him here anymore.
Actually, some people want him here and that’s why he’s still here
“The teams are coming here and playing fearless against us. This is the first thing we need to change. We need to change it and we need to be strong and we need to be together.”
That part make me lose it. How is that on us ? What about the constant praise of the opponent ffs.
Does someone have an exemple of emery admitting something went wrong because of him ?
Its not really surprising is it. Before every single match Emery essentially says “Hey Guys, you scare the shit out of us”.
It IS on us (well, not me though), because whenever in recent years the team really needed our support, we turned on them. If we’re not 2-0 up after 10 minutes, we start getting on the players’ backs and distracting them from their objectives. This is what cost us the league in 2015/16, when Leicester won it. Just look at the Swansea game as an example. Fans got so scared that Wenger would win the league and prove them wrong, that they went out of their way to cost us that game and the title.
Il help alright, by packing his suitcase and driving him to the airport!
The Southampton match was the final straw for me. He stood in the technical area with his hands in his pockets all 2nd half, only breaking to row with Laca. He’s done.
I don’t understand why fans have to be abusive towards the guy. Okay, so he’s terrible at his job, and they’re not firing him, how is that on him? Would any one of us resign from a job where we know we’d get 6mil or so if we stayed a little longer? I don’t think so. There’s no need to call him a clown, he’s bad at his job. That should be it. You don’t insult him. That’s not Arsenal.
If he wasn’t a clown he’d resign as it clear to EVERYBODY he’s not up to the job.
You had 60,000 supporter’s help on Saturday but that didn’t seem to do sod all, did it. Sorry, Unai, but I think the supporters feel they’ve given you more than enough help already.
I would agree with you. The fans were behind the team even when they went a goal down, and then 2-1. But the fact he kept changing the formation and putting players in different positions just frustrated both supporters and players.
When was that? I was at the game, and I think I must have missed this “help”.
The fact that other teams are fearless when they visit the emirates has little to do with the support and a lot with the fact that we’re playing like cunts for months
Prolly he will start xhaka. Hope xhaka makes him get sacked. Then both can emeryball away. Wishful thinking but we can hope.
Im betting emery to be here for at least the next 2 PL games
Xhaka is not a bad player. He’s as much a victim as Ozil or Pepe or Our Results.
Er no we’re the victims, being told to fu*k off by our captain
During the Interlull responsible people would have thought things over and made a plan. Worse case scenario – make Ljungberg do the works for couple of matches if that was necessary – it can take some time closing a deal with a top class manager. Best case scenario – have a replacement ready when feeling the total toxicity after last weekend.
Simple plan would have been… Keep Emery in name only. Let Edu, and Ljungberg do the coaching and decide the playing system, tell Emery what to say to the Press, commend Emery for his efforts when his contract ends.
I like that plan. Gets around the problem of Freddie not having his full coaching licence yet.
The fans were singing ‘We love you Arsenal, we do’ pretty regularly at the weekend, despite the shockingly bad stuff on display (again). So he can sod off with that nonsense. When a team at the bottom in complete disarray come to the Arsenal and have over 20 shots and outplay us, well guess what? You might hear a few boos at the end. Perhaps he and some of the other snowflakes in our squad should go and see Xhaka’s counsellor if they don’t like fans voicing their dissatisfaction? I’m not a fan of aftv, but I do like the… Read more »
OK my god,,, i Cant belive he is still here,,, up untill yesterday I was looking at my phone every hour to see his sacking,, today i look at my phone about 2pm ish and he’s still not SACKED?? how much longer do we have to wait,?? I Cant take much more
????some people
99 problems and the supporters aint one
“Unai Emery says he wants to reconnect with the Arsenal fans“
This guy doesn’t get it, we’ve already moved on. Delete our number
This has the ring of fear to it. Seems like everything he does is fear-based.
Emery getting paid millions just to improve his understanding of the english language because it sure ain’t in the teams games can’t even call them performances
He and everyone with a pair of eyes and ears knows he’s pretty much gone. It’s a matter of when and not if at this point. Can’t ask the fans to make it hard for the opposition when the team welcomes them in with open arms
When you get a BREAKING NEWS notification on your phone and you are hoping it’s that he has been sacked.
My wife thinks Emery is great. No longer do I disappear for the day to go the footie, nor does she have to listen to me scream fruitlessly at the screen. Now I prefer to watch Kirsty Allsop’s Christmas crafting with her, than the Gunners latest disaster class on the tv.
I shall be staying home tomorrow. My seat will remain empty. That’s the best I can do Snr. Emery – to not come along and actively boo you …
If it’s so reliant on support the how come Newcastle haven’t won the prem in years while Man C and it’s fickle supporters have?
Gary – Good call, excellent post.
Supporters are part of the problem. They like to pride themselves with imagined positives that they are backing the club but in truth Arsenal have some of the worse support base. Always tetchy and fickle. Part of it is due to overly high expectations. Its not wrong for the supporters of course to have high ambition for this club. We need to think big and get back into CL and aim for the very top. BUT the club supporters are up their arse if they can;’t see we have as is limitations to this squad not addressed in the summer… Read more »
Rubbish. As a fan, I would suggest venting our collective spleen to the hierarchy of this club and letting them know in no uncertain terms how pissed off we all are. Well, some of us are…..
Well said!
I can’t quite understand the volumes you write Santori, in order to say a couple of things that, more or less, imply one thing: to be servile! I don’t understand the logic of saying the fans cry. I mean what the hell should the fans do when their beloved club sinks deeper and deeper? When is the time, from your quite volumeous perspective, to raise the voice? Let Emery a little while to see if he can turn it around? That’s total nonsense. Last year he had something and then lost it by miles away. There is absolutely not a… Read more »
Emery is right. Let’s support.
Go and look at our stats for this season. And you think we’re all supposed to be cartwheeling our way to the ground, like some sort of Dick Van Dyke song and dance number, going bananas and lifting the roof of the Emirates off, singing the praises of Dracula and his amazing Back Three..? Sorry mate, it doesn’t work like that.
The man wants cheerleaders, not supporters. He’s living in s dream world. Nothing annoys me more than a football coach abdicating his responsibility to get the team playing properly. That’s where the roar of supporters starts – good football. Start utilising the strengths of the players you have at your disposal, you twerp, and the rest – good football, goals, results and guess what, the backing of the supporters – will all follow. You’re not going to get the Emirates rocking to the kind of shit that’s being served up at the moment. It’s not fucking rocket science….
Here’s a classic Emery: pointing the finger at others again for his own failings.
I would love to go back to the says of Arsene’s handbrake…
“Little bit the handbrake.”
Protagonist Handbrake.
I am in no way in favour of Emery being our manager (it should still be Wenger), but what he has said here is spot on. Our supporters are garbage. They get behind the team when we’re 3-0 up at half-time against Manchester United or Chelsea, but when we’re 0-0 or even losing deep into a must-win game, when the players are struggling, when they really need the 12th man, the crowd turns on the team. These “supporters” probably also give CPR to healthy babies, and say “man up” to elderly people who are struggling to breathe. When Liverpool came… Read more »
Alright guys, we need to be united. All to storm the pitch on Gunnersaurus’s signal! No staying back!
I dont know which sets of fans can continuously support 100% given the never ending shit show. He should take a leaf out of Wenger’s book.
Did anyone at the club brief Emery on the fact the club themselves are preventing the regular Europa going fans (red members) from supporting the team at the stadium on Thurs? They love throwing him under a bus sometimes, don’t they?