Unai Emery says he’s looking for his players to take the positives from last Sunday’s 2-0 defeat to Man City as they head for Stamford Bridge this weekend.
Although the gulf between the two sides was pretty obvious, there were things that the new boss was pleased with, and he’s urging his side to focus on them when they face Chelsea on Saturday evening.
Speaking at his pre-game press conference about what he learned from his first competitive game in charge, the Spaniard said, “The first game gives us more information about things to improve and also things to continue doing.
“We need to continue with our work to make the differences in the next match and in the future.
“For me, what was most important was the players know the positive things we did in this game and also the things we need to improve on and work more for.”
And on what the plan is for Chelsea, he continued, “First, we want to build a competitive team. We are going to play away but we need to keep our personality, keep our mentality, because I think on Sunday against Manchester City, the team kept their ideas, kept their spirit in the game for the full 90 minutes, even when we were losing.
“That was a good thing. I want us to continue with this work and to be completive for 90 minutes, but with a better performance than on Sunday, both individually and collectively.
“We want a good preparation before and a good response on the pitch to that preparation.”
Having already revealed he’s keeping faith with Petr Cech, we’ll wait and see what he does about midfield with new signing Lucas Torreira in line for his first start – but at whose expense?
And will he start Aubameyang and Lacazette together after the former Borussia Dortmund man talked up their relationship during the week?
We’ll find out on Saturday.
Like the competitiveness side of it, it was missing from later Wenger sides.
Keep the goals as well (with Auba and Laca playing) and we’ll do well.
At this stage of the rebuild all I’m looking for is a positive performance and a bit of bite to our play. The results will come.
I’m hoping to see the first game where it’s “Opponents 0” even if it’s followed by “Arsenal 0” then I will believe that Dick’s recognised the problems at the back need to be sorted before we can hope to progress.
Cant wait for the first hand bag moment either. Awful
Is it me or does the comment not make any sense? Spell check make any unwarranted corrections?
Torreira in for Xhaka, please.
And Laca for Micky or Mesut
Torreira has been brought in as a proper DM to allow Xhaka to play as a deep lying midfielder as he plays for Switzerland with great success. I hope we see both of them in the te
but now we have even better deep lying midfielder than xhaka in guendouzi. i dont want to get carried away about guendouzi . he was partially resposible for the two goals we conceded. so he is not without faults. but the way xhaka has been playing has been awfull. i thought that it more about wengers tactics than xhaka s inability last season. but under emery in preseason and against city xhaka has bee. one of our weakest link. he loses possession so easily that everyone is targeting him now when pressing. guendouzi may or may not become the player… Read more »
Just bring down the bridge guys. COYG
Would like to see the difference starting Torriera makes, assuming he’s fit enough for it.
No Xhaka, please. Chelsea have quality in their midfield and Xhaka ball watching and being bypassed not gonna do the gunners any favors.
Optimistic about this one. Chels in the middle of a reboot as well. And no Fabregas and no [raging dickhead] Costa, so nothing to fear from Chels.
Yeah, except for that guy Hazard.. Heard he’s a pretty good prospect.
Cech
Bellerin Mustafi Sokratis Monreal
Torreira Ramsey
Mihki ozil Auba
Lacazette
I’d like Reiss Nelson to start getting a look in as well as we lack pace and width.
Agree completely.
I’m on the fence about Ramsey. Seems like he still tends to get caught up field/out of position making holes in AFC’s defense. With Hazard, Kante, Jorginho and William, gonna need to do better and not get overrun. Who to play in his spot then? Iwobi? The HFK? (Harry French Kid).
away game against Chelski, I’d be happy to to see Lich at either RB or LB, but otherwise this probably our best team at the moment. I just feel that Rambo, Mihki, and Ozil are all trying to do the same thing…
Yeah it’s getting pretty clear we can’t play both Özil and Micki if we’re to have a high press
Cech
Bellerin Mustafi Sokratis Lichtsteiner
Torreira Ramsey
Iwobi Ozil Auba
Lacazette
Let’s put a bastard out there instead of Monreal and let’s put Iwobi out there so we have a dribbler who also can defend. Mhiki, Nelson, Elneny can sub on.
Good line up (except for Mickey)
I feel we can take something from this one. Contrary to what many of the usual media pundits have been saying, I didn’t think City were that dominant over us. Sure they beat us by 2 goals, out shot us and had slightly more possession but there was always the feeling that they were extremely vulnerable at times and that had we been more focused with our final application, we could have grabbed 2 or 3 goals ourselves. Chiefly, we overturned them many times high up the pitch. Guendouzi, Ozil, Mhki, Ramsey, Lacazette all won the ball in their half… Read more »
I’d like to see a 4-1-2-1-2 with Toreira, Guendouzi, Ramsey/Mkhitaryan/Iwobi/Nelson and Özil forming a midfield diamond, with Auba and Laca up front. Sounds experimental, but why not? ?
I followed a lot of Ancelotti’s Milan back then, so I always like diamond midfield. Ancelotti tried it with Chelsea early on and quickly found out that in EPL, team will struggle if they don’t exploit / protect the flank well. Even Guardiola in his first season struggled because of being too narrow (you can notice now either one of his ‘wing forward’ will hug the line and the opposite full back / wing back also will do the same on the opposite site, when they are building up possession). For me, playing Auba on the wing (keep staying high)… Read more »
I see what you did there, Bendtnerschristmastree!
Totally unrelated topic: Tim Stillmans articles are just top drawer.
Many analyst types are a bore and not fun to read. He manages to be both not boring and easy to follow.
Any type of result here would be decent. Chelsea have got real quality, there hasn’t been much between the sides over the last two seasons, but Chelsea has certainly done better business with Kovacic+Jorginho. If the result goes against us? I’m expecting a media meltdown, but hopefully fans are a little more pragmatic…. I think we got the right guy in Emery, but Still think we’re in for a tough season, squad is very unbalanced and we lack quality in certain areas. If the fans have to turn on anyone this season? I really hope it’s that bald tw*t with… Read more »
Given the circumstances I thought a point out of our first six possible would be a success. It’s actually a good thing to warm up against City/Chelsea – there is no shame in the results as long as they’re not hammered. What would the headlines have been if we lost to Huddersfield or Watford in the first two as we began a new era? The media loves to pile on the club and I believe they have, and would again, do damage to the the team psyche with their endless mocking.