Unai Emery says he trusts his players to overcome BATE Borisov despite last week’s shitshow of a performance leading to a 1-0 defeat in Belarus.
Having started the first leg quite brightly, Arsenal fell into an all-too-common away day malaise on Thursday, failing to find any fluidity up front after falling behind just before half time.
Having embarrassed themselves on the outer edges of Europe, the Spaniard is expecting his players to get their act together now they are back at home.
“It was a bad result last week,” reflected Emery in his pre-game press conference.
“The team worked with our planning and we had chances to score and every chance we need to improve tomorrow.
“We need to continue with our gameplay despite the bad result. Tomorrow we must manage 90 minutes with the result to get a good result for us, but knowing that this is 1-0 we need to be very consistent.
“We also need to get into their box, find the best positions to score and be efficient. We need a big result to manage this game better, but I think we have experience and every player knows tomorrow we are playing against an organised team.
“They have big motivation after that result, and we must do the best performance and I ask our supporters because I think they can help us achieve a good performance to come back into the game.
“My confidence is if we play like we can and play together for 90 minutes, like we are doing at home, I have the confidence and trust in our players.”
Having won the Europa League three times with Sevilla, Emery knows what it takes to traverse tricky ties against tenacious underdogs, however, he also believes that the competition is getting progressively stronger, in part because Champions League is now on offer to the victors.
“The Europa League has improved a lot over the last year and now to win is very difficult,” he added.
“Last year it was Atletico Madrid and two years ago it was Manchester United. Three years ago we played Sevilla against Liverpool – and now every team wants to win this competition because it’s a title that gives the team the opportunity to play in the Champions League the next year. But every team wants that.
“Small teams have the chance to surprise in this competition too because they have a lot of experienced players with their international team, and they have showed us that they can be competitive in these two matches.
“Now we are very, very focused to give the best performance and show respect to them, but we are thinking about this round only. We are not thinking about this whole competition yet, no, no, no, we need to win tomorrow to continue our way in this competition.”
Mickey Mouse cup that suits the manager. Will forever be in the Europa league with him at the helm. Just look at the players he is linked with.
The players we were linked with in January, are the types of players you tend to be linked with, when your budget is £0.
I agree we are currently a Europa league level team, who are certainly not good enough to do anything in the Champions league, and probably not good enough to get into the top 4.
If Emery gets us into the top4? Then I think we’d have overachieved, but even though we’re only a point off, I still think that’s extremely unlikely.
The players we continue to be linked with outside the window are all players who have played with him before, so why bother hiring any sort of scouts?
Cause in a few years he would run out of players that played with him before due to the reason that they are all above 35 and retired from the game. 😛 But jokes aside, generally I agree with you, not a promising sign. However, I think if we had the possibility to get Dybala, Draxler, Salah, Donnarumma, etc. he would ask for them and not Banega or Nzonzi. It’s not like we have 400 million to spend but the head coach still insists to sign his mates. Guess a good relationship with Emery would be the only reason for… Read more »
Arsenal does not move managers swiftly. That is the Chelsea way.
I would love to win Europa (at least once) and automatically qualify for CL.
I dont trust Ozil tho
Let’s not forget this is a manager that didn’t win a single away fixture all season at Sevilla. He’s not beyond criticism even if this is his first season, any result that doesn’t see us through will surely put into question his involvement with us next season.
Yes no one is above criticism but why only pick Sevilla? How about PSG’s away record or our away record this season? Didn’t we win few this season?
You mean when he failed to win league in his first season? Getting bounced from CL against Barca being up 4-0?
This guy is a mid table club manager.
Can you please name all BIG club manager?
Barca and Bayern came perilously close to getting bounced out of the CL after having 4-0 leads against us.
I saw the game and Paris trashed Barcelona with an credible easiness. On the return leg the game was closer that it seems and the referee very generous in is decision making. A bit like when Van Persie was sent off.
In my opinion that happens waaaay too many times with Barca to be coincidence.
Let’s not forget this is a manager that has already improved our away record comparing to last season.
Out of all top 6 teams we have by far the weakest squad and somehow we’re in the battle for the 4th place. And the fact he’s having better stats than majority of managers in their first seasons, says something to me.
But yea let’s sack him after one season and start from rock bottom again. Way to go!
Not sure about that. Sp*rs squad is very top heavy. They have little to no depth at all. As difficult as it is to say, they struck gold with Pochettino. Granted, he only uses about 15 players across the season, but he is definitely a manager that has squeezed every ounce of performance from his thin squad. Emery is not on that level, but to be fair he’s in his first season.
What stats are you looking at?
We have 12 matches left, this can get ugly fast the way we are playing.
We are only competing for 4th because ManU didn’t fire Mou earlier or at the beginning of the season. I still think if Sarri is given enough time he will get through this also even if he doesn’t the rumor of zidane getting a 200m transfer fund to reshape the roster doesn’t look good for us. Especially if Pooch stays where he’s at.
Our away record last season after 19 away games we only managed 16 points, so far this season we played 13 away games & managed 18 points. Poch in his first season finished 6th(69pts) , Klopps first season finished 8th(60pts) , pep finished 3rd(78pts) with only 3 points ahead of 5th place. Sorry mate but people need to be realistic, what were they expecting from this season? Our team is in complete shambles. So you think if Sarri is given enough time he’ll get get Chelsea back on top? After getting spanked by us, Bournemouth, Man City and United? Yet… Read more »
Also our last 5 seasons after 26 games;
14/15 – 48pts
15/16 – 51pts
16/17 – 50pts
17/18 – 45pts
18/19 – 50pts,
We all might question some of Emery decisions, but let the man do his freaking job for christ sake. He’s not doing phenomenal, he’s not doing absolutely awful. He’s doing just fine with what resources he’s got available to him.
I pick sevilla because psg is a much higher level than us. Let’s face the facts with the way we’re playing at the moment his days are limited. Football is a results sport, the new ‘ruthless streak’ we’re asking for doesn’t just apply to the players it also applies to the manager.
Why don’t you pick Arsenal instead and actually try to support YOUR club rather than focusing on others and digging our manager out? He’s been here 7 months ffs.
If it all comes together for us this season then I wonder if you’d be shameless enough to still celebrate…
Supporting the club an blind optimism aren’t synonymous. Klopp won the league with dortmund, did the league and cup double with them and got to champs final. Pep has won countless trophies. Poch is just a diving club twat manager shame on you for including him in your list. Emery has won the europa yes and won stuff with psg (almost guaranteed) but can we truly say we’re seeing his footballing philosophy come through. For me at this stage, in his first season it’s more about seeing the style of football/approach to management, if he turns things around with some… Read more »
Yawn
If we don’t score inside the opening 20 minutes tomorrow the fans inside the ground will get grouchy, if they can make it in at all thanks to the KO time.
Funny. I don’t trust the players or this manager. Ya, that hurts. A lot. Fuck.
Kind of worried about this game. BATE have their lead which they will cling to with every fiber of their being. We better start with a back 4, and we better start with both Laca/Auba on the field. If not then I don’t evne know what Emery’s doing. It’s time to turn on the style and show BATE they don’t belong in the same league as us. Easier said than done since I’m sure they will be parking the bus
I’ll bet you £5billion laca doesn’t play.
It wouldn’t shock me, but I don’t why he wouldn’t play him. He and Auba enjoy playing together and are by far our 2 biggest goal scoring threats. To not make use of that would be silly in a game like this. Squad balance be damned, we shouldn’t need a balanced team to put 3 or 4 past the Belarusians.
I might have been having a nightmare last week, but I think Laca is suspended due to red card in first leg. I still think we’ll hammer them 5-0.
Wow completely forget that. Glad I didn’t take that bet!
Like a final.