Unai Emery says Arsenal face huge competition to finish in the Champions League places after a 3-2 defeat at Southampton saw his side slipped three points adrift of fourth-place Chelsea.
Having surrendered their 22-game unbeaten run at Saint Mary’s, the Spaniard knows his side must wrestle back momentum quickly if they’re to achieve their number one aim for the season.
Wednesday’s north London derby in the Carabao Cup kicks-off a run of five games in 15 days that also includes away trips to Brighton and Liverpool and home games with Burnley and Fulham.
“Our demands are very big and the level is very high with other teams,” Emery told his post-game press conference.
“If we don’t win, like today, we cannot be in the top four. But other teams are winning. We need to do our way and build up the team in one process.
“The objective is the top four, but we know it’s not easy as the other teams are at a high level.
“We need to be very demanding of ourselves, as we are. After 22 matches unbeaten, we didn’t lose but were only in fifth position in the table, because other teams are doing very well.”
On a day when his side was beaten by three headers to take the goals against tally in the Premier League to an ugly 23, Emery also accepted that his players need to tighten up defensively.
“It’s true we need to improve and concede less chances to the opposition,” he noted.
“Only when we analyse this match can we take a more real opinion about the goals we conceded.
“One reality is we need to improve and concede less. We are scoring a lot, we are second in the table for goals scored, but we have also conceded a lot – at least more than we want for our objective.”
Emery refused to blame his patched-up defence for today’s result, insisting that attacking efficiency was the main difference.
“I think they [Arsenal’s defence] worked very well. It was very good news for Koscielny, a very good performance over 90 minutes. Physically, he could play the 90 minutes.
“Other players, like Xhaka played very well, and Lichtsteiner also. We conceded not many chances for them, but their efficiency was good.
“We also had chances to score more than the two goals but we didn’t score. Maybe the difference is this. The control in the game over 90 minutes is more for us than them. We need to continue improving details, because three times we conceded chances.”
I would do anything to fucking have a koulibaly right now…. Damn it!
A koulibaly would be great but our biggest issues right now are structural. Squad wise, we do not fit Emery’s style of play and he is refusing to adjust to his players. I think he is right to put the development of his system and football above short-term gains, so a Koulibaly would be amazing if he fits into what Emery wants to see on the pitch. I am not really that worried about us defensively because our players are playing well at the back, but we have not yet gotten the hang of Emery’s defensive set-up or system. I… Read more »
Utterly disagree that he’s refusing to adjust. His entire system has adjusted to suit this squad. Prior to us, he rarely even played a 3-man defence, but has done so.
And totally disagree we’re playing well at the back. Outside of Holding, are individual errors leading to chances is still too high from our defenders, so not sure where you got that from.
Also I don’t know how you can say we never go through the centre of the pitch, then rightfully point out we have an over-reliance on Xhaka….who plays…through the centre of the pitch.
1. By saying we never play through the middle, I meant beyond the half way line. that is where our fluidity comes from. I think that is why he played Ozil on the left at the start of the season, to have him in places where the team plays. Ozil and Ramsey have both had horrible games in the #10 position and Ozil’s 10/10 performance against Leicester had him going central in our own half, wide in the middle third and up top as a second striker in the final third. We still do not have a string of consecutive… Read more »
I would prefer to have Auba not missing golden chances regularly.
This in itself is a very big issue.
Too many defenders out and we were poor on crosses. They had only won once at home in 12 months! But their new manager must have raised them.
Hard not to be pessimistic after that loss but hope we get back to form quickly and beat Sp*rs on Wednesday.
Agreed, we were a long way from a settled back four despite the quality of them.
We have sokratis and mustaffi back against the scum, let’s show them what colour London is
I dont understand why everyone thinks top 4 is over, we are 3 points out of 4th and 5 points out of 3rd. If we were In third and 5pts out of 1st and 3pts out of 2nd, would anyone be saying title challenge over?
That is a jolly good o’l point
The problem is there are 5 teams who are all looking really strong (including us)
Hopefully Sp*rs will Sp*rs it up at some point, and United will keep doing what they are doing (much to everybody’s amusement).
No one said top 4 is over. It’s just that we had a reality check today and it wasn’t pretty. Hopefully we can avoid defeats like that in the future. It’s one thing dropping points against teams like Pool or Chelsea but it hurts when it’s bottom of the table that makes you look like a very average club.
The problem is as he points out, that we have just been on an incredible run and we still weren’t in the top four.
The problem is do we see ourselves doing that kind of run again. We would probably need to and there are still the defensive issues to sort out.
We are not out of it but do you see any of the other top sides plummeting down the table?
Don’t think Emery, nor many others, is saying, “top 4 is over”
The impression, however, is that we had been lucky. Adding to this the injuries, one can see Emery’s point, which is “we know it’s not easy.”
Credit to him for not drinking the Kool-aid, even when it was flowing during the unbeaten run.
It is too early yet to say top 4 is over, after all that is why Mourinho is still in a job because mathematically Man U could get top 4 and once they can’t he will get the chop. Last season there were key games we needed to win to still stand a chance of Top 4 but we either lost or drew them…having said all that, as well as doing our part we need to hope Tots or Chels fall apart, otherwise it may well be Europa League again…unless we win it this year of course.
Emery need to drop Guendouzi out of the starting 11. ANN and Ramsey should be starting a ahead of him. He’s still young and runs around like a headless chicken. He can improve his game but he is not ready right now. I think in the absence of Xhaka or Torreira Emery should use AMN or Ramsey in midfield. We lost because the midfield was dead and the defense was make shift. Xhaka need to come back in the midfield we have a better balance when he partner Torreira. Emery also need to quickly find a formation that Accomodates both… Read more »
So you want to regularly start our ONLY 2 senior strikers? Even though currently our squad is falling due to injuries? And what happens when one of them gets injured?
Yes! Nice observation
Our defense has been atrocious for months if not years. I think Emery was a good appointment but bringing in Sokratis and Lichsteiner was not smart business. One is more of a wrestler than a footballer, and the other is passed his expiration date. Given the fact that Mustafi is a clown who can’t stay on his feet, and our best defender in Holding is done for the year, we’re in desperate need of reinforcement.
I’ve been watching Sokratis play and he seems very assured and impressive. So much so, that sometimes I wish I could clone Sokratis
Bit harsh on Sokratis I wasn’t over keen when we signed him, but I think he’s probably been the most assured defender all season.
This was one of our weaker defensive performances, you can’t judge any of the guys who didn’t play off it
A good cross will always be dangerous. We really need to work on closing them down. It’s not like all premier league teams have tricky wingers that can dribble you and leave you in the dust. This means you can get close to them and shut down their crossing. I hope we can improve in this sense.
Exactly my worry concerning our fullbacks (especially Bellering). We don’t close down the opponent and force them to pass the ball back like most top teams fullbacks does. Instead our fullbacks back off as if they’re actually inviting the crossing. It’s been happening and I wonder how the coaching team has not picked that up before now? It’s so appalling to watch them do that often and on without the central defenders giving them some shoutdowns to awaken their senses.
I’m sorry but the only worldclass we have right now is Aubameyang and Lacazette. Torriera could be up there but we are to weak. Compare us to Liverpool or Chelsea player for player and only those three would be chosen ahead of their counterparts. I’m sorry to say that. We have been shooting over our own weight.
So you think it’s fair to compare us to a team that won the league the previous season to last and Liverpool who have been rebuilding for what? 3 years now? Whilst we’re only 6 months into ours?
I was surprised Medley was ignored today
Despite the down votes I agree with you. Zech is a defender and we needed defenders.
as much as it sucks to lose I hope the unbeaten run ending can prevent any overambitious excitement.
It’s been great but we do have a good way to go
Don’t know about you guys, but to me this top four narrative is a little over-played. Not that keen in squeezing into a fourth place position with a squad that’s not good enough to compete for a PL or CL title. I’m fine with another year of Europa League next season so long as we keep growing and upgrading the squad. CL money matters but it’s not life or death due to our sustainable approach. I don’t miss drawing Bayern or Barcelona every season. I do miss a proper title challenge and we should remember that’s our real priority, not… Read more »
Our approach has only been sustainable thus far in large part due to CL money.
With the new dynamic in the league, until we have a team that’s good enough to compete for a title, we won’t qualify for any more of that CL money.
Disagree. Not being in CL for another season will reinforce our status as a second tier European team. Also, the money we’ve spent on Laca and Auba, amongst the others, is not sustainable long term without CL revenue.
I would argue that getting thrashed 5-1 by Bayern every year also reinforces our status as a second-tier European team.
Holy Sven please help us
I don’t know why people are overplaying this result, to be honest. We finished the game with Maitland-Niles, a rusty Koscielny, Xhaka (!) and monreal as our back 4… we were always going to struggle.
You have to feel for Emery today. The unbalanced squad was already a problem before he arrived, and now it’s threadbare. You can only hope for speedy recoveries and for the owner to support an obviously talented manager in the winter and summer transfer windows.
Is Ramsey injured? If not, why didn’t he feature in midfield? Also, we tend to think that every goal we concede is our fault. Their first featured a first-class cross and finish.
problems we had yesterday:
1. Could not stretch the game on the wings and played too narrow.
2. Not efficient in front of goal.
3. Not enough closing down for the goals and bad positioning of Leno.
4. Lack of speed and strength is worrisome.
5. Defence was makeshift and the midfield did not help.
6. Used up all the luck in the galaxy for the unbeaten run.
We invited them onto the front foot with our insistence on keeping the ball by playing backwards all the time. (Times when we were in final third but ended up passing to Leno). Lichtensteiner was possibly worst for this but not alone.
We’re then giving the ball to players who aren’t comfortable with it and opponents can pounce on that. We were far better when pushing onto our forwards.
Lichsteiner is a band aid.
Mhkitaryan may have scored today but frankly he was poor business last January when we could have gotten Mahrez.
Sven has been suspect on a number of dealing that has not helped.
BUT some people like to delude themselves that we are doing great business in market suddenly.
Granted defense is a bit of a shambles at the moment without Sokratis, Mustafi and Holding, I think the attack also has taken their foot off the pedal a bit.
A bit of complacency crept in after win over Spurts.
That makeshift defence was shambolic. Why do we have an academy when we dont give the players a chance to prove themselves. We are one of the top teams in Europe with a very bad spending policy but we have a very good academy. We have very good young defenders who are fit playing every week for the U23 in Zech Medley and Julio Pleguezuelo but Emery chose to go with unfit Laurent Koscielny. Its very risky taking Xhaka out of the midfield this should not happen again. Emery should give chance to the academy players to cover injuries and… Read more »
I agree with most of what you say and the worst thing about not using the academy players but letting them train with the first team squad is that the U23s have fallen all the way down the table in the PL2…so Freddie’s job is being made really difficult as well.
Freddie’s job is to make those youngsters ready for the first team. When the first team manager need a player that is ready Freddie give the player over and he draft new players from the U21 or wherever. The first team is the priority of the club. Mbappe didnt become who he is overnight at such a young age, he was given a chance to prove himself. Thats what we need to do as a top club with a good academy. We dont spend much already so it means we need to get most of our players from the academy.
never mind fourth place, lets make sure of fifth place
same old arsenal, no chance of fourth place, so I will settle for fifth spot
Please! We strugled because we dont have serious deadly striker! Auba was the wast perfomer having missed three clear chances! If he scored one or two then the team would concentrate on leading position. So we should aim to get deadly striker like aguero so that scoring becomes easy! So sign for is striker, tie ramsey to contruct and buy a defender
Auba could/should easily be on 15 plus league goals, already. I love the chap, but he misses a lot of chances. But, he has done his whole career. Just wish both he and Laca could always play together!