Unai Emery was quick to congratulate Chelsea after they crushed Arsenal’s Europa League dreams witha 4-1 win in the final in Baku.
The Spaniard acknowledged that Olivier Giroud’s goal four minutes after the break proved to be a turning point after his side had played a solid first half.
Facing the BT Sport cameras, he said: “First, congratulations to Chelsea. In the first half we worked and played with a good challenge and to take a good result.
“We got in the box with some options, some chances to score. The match was going as we thought. In the second half, Giroud’s goal changed all.
“After, we tried to keep in the match, finding one goal, but the second goal was difficult for us.
“I think the second half, things were going better for them and also, when we wanted to do something, we didn’t find the efficiency to score.
“The result is like that. They deserved to win. We deserved maybe something more, but we didn’t do it.”
We deserved nothing. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but we sold out one of our players for the $$$ and deservedly ended up with nothing.
I’m lost
I didn’t think it was particularly subtle, but:
It was shameful the way we rolled over and let the final be played in a country where their foreign minister was actively threatening one of our players and where it wasn’t safe for him to go. We did it for the money, because the consequences of not being in the CL were too large. But we lost anyway, so we ended up with nothing. We sold out our principles and didn’t even get a reward.
Chief underperformer Mikhitarian would have won the game for us, right?
Way to spectacularly miss the point…
“Eh, he’s bad anyway so who cares if he’s being threatened by government officials of the hosting country” is exactly the sort of attitude that shows what’s wrong with this club.
Welcome to 2019 Arsenal. Principles to with arsene
Many thumbs up here, but each and every one wouldn’t give a shit about all that if the result was different. People wanting to take the morally high ground after a heavy loss is pathetic, really.
Feel free to browse back a few days and you’ll see me making the same point the whole time. I appreciate your accusation of hypocrisy, though.
Not Playing the game was never an option. You watching the game means you sold out on your principles in equal amount anyways. UEFA is shit, don’t see why that stinky “we take any obvious bribe we get”mess should be on Arsenal shoulders.
Somebody running down my comments giving me a thumb down for each! Like I might do with my man Santori attimes ? (kidding I never go on such hateful streaks)
Turn right at Tbilisi then ask for directions to London
We definitely didn’t do it. Not sure what exactly we did. Sad result. We’ve missed Ramsey these last weeks and I wonder what we will do to improve for next season.
Ramsey is just the latest person we’ve missed from a season which was already skeptical before their demises
No shit. Giroud’s goal changed the game.
The lack of penetration, conviction and effort was what’s the fault. A lack of spending money on significant improvements on the squad is a problem. A lack of tactical nous while defending is a problem. Blah.. blah.. we didn’t win is the biggest problem. And that’s your fault
The lack of a bag to replenish a severely depleted squad is Emery’s fault ?
What team was severely depleted? Chelsea without in-form Loftus-Cheek, Rudiger their best defender or Arsenal?
Really man ? You’ll argue about team quality, depth, amount of investment ?
What a stupid question. Chelsea may have missed those players but we missed our best defender (Holding), had youngsters on the bench, missed Ramsey and Mkhi.
And Chelsea have 37 players on loan. We were depleted, its been a long season.
I am sure they would leave rudiger at home if given did same with Ramsey. They have a depth in squad that we surely lack.
no, it’s your fault, emery has worked his socks off and improved from last year with nothing but himself to do it with, what did you do exactly?
If Arsenal had any ambition, they would sack this bland bland manager We don’t expect much, but we at least want to see good football if not anything else. He has failed to do even that. But then again, if Arsenal had actually gone through a thorough managerial search rather than hand the job over to the person who blagged his way through the interview with lies, they’d have seen that Emery possesses literally nothing that would have made him a successful Arsenal coach- not the style, and not the balls We’ll achieve nothing under Emery. Best to save the… Read more »
I’m sure many fans would back Emery if they could see what exactly he does, or what he’s actually improved. Even if the results were awful but we played good, we would see some sort of progress and hope- but Emery is Emery. Suitable for Everton, or Newcastle.
You’re just sad and venting. I hope
Tonight, let these sad immature children whine and bitch and moan about the manager as if a new coach was going to fix all our problems in 1 season.
Tomorrow, adults can have a healthy reasoned debate about our absent owners, our finances, our tired-ass squad, and come to some conclusions a bit smarter than “get rid”.
He’s made the problems worse, you cretin. It’s actually easier to change a manager than change a whole bunch of players, and change the owner, did you know that? Unless Emery has done anything do deserve an entire squad of new players (like that’s possible)
Make your point without the personal abuse. It doesn’t reflect well on you or the site
Kaius, go easy on them in your own pain . Hurtful night and not everyone’s blest with the gift of looking past a puddle they’re currently stuck in ?
You’d make a good therapist bro ?
Well said
@kaius, a good team can always lose one game but we are not a good team. Losing four easy games while a single win could give us top four shows how bad we actually are. What did the manager do to get that win we needed?
Yes, but what did the club do last summer to get rid of players who clearly showed under Wenger they weren’t good enough?
What did the club do during the winter transfer window to deal with the long-term injuries we got in the first-half of the season?
Can we stop pretending we can distill every problem down to “the manager”?
We are in the Final vs Chelsea and we try and play like mourinho! 5 defenders when we need to control the match was absolute rubbish. Will we play vs Liverpool and City even with CR7 and messi his system is next to Sam Allardyce than a team that will win anything
Pointless to criticize Emery. The players are the same from last season, and the results are the same as last season, as it was under probably our greatest manager Arsene Wenger. We have direct evidence that the change in manager had minimal effect on the results. While I would agree that today Emery got outdone by Sarri, the reverse happened in the previous fixture against Chelsea. Anyways, the point being that, it’s practically the same core of players who keep on failing when the going gets tough, and we’ve had two different managers try to do something about it and… Read more »
You never shut up do you
Fuck off lol this is a comments section, we’ve just lost a final and could see spurs winning on Saturday. I’ll say whatever the fuck I want to
Only if blogs allows it and frankly he should have blocked you for being a twat
Go “support” some other club, in a sport you understand. what emery has managed to achieve this year is only invisible to headless chicken.
Emery has achieved nothing this year. Fact.
100% it not that a new manager would improve us and make us world beaters but what system is he using. When Jan came the best he could think of was Denis Suarez. in the entire world and Denis Suarez was the answer. Ozil is not bad at all but for pits sake play the team to its advantage while working towards your team dreams. Klopp came and we all so Liverpool pressing and hussling, This guy has been taking the best we have and benching them, ramsey anyone? its a big game and you come with a small team… Read more »
Ozil has to go. Otherwise we won’t finish in the top 6 next season. Like Emery said the other day, we are missing the winning DNA in us. We need to get rid off all the old wenger boys apart from laca and Abu. We need a fresh new start, with players who give 120% for 90+ minutes per game. These bastard only show up for 45 min every fking game!
Time for a massive chance…..
Old Wenger boys is a bad tone.. we need in general more penetration.. ozil is brilliant. He wasnt today and most of the season..but its not Wenger to blame..
I swear Ozil could come around some fans house, do a shit and not flush and they’ll still claim it’s not his fault, “the toilet just needs to be set up to get the best out of his shitters”.
Lol @Faisal
Hazard was brilliant, ozil was shit. This was the stage, ozil bottled it whereas hazard stepped up. Until the club wake up and become ruthless we will never win another trophy. This isn’t on wenger, in any business if you still can’t deliver after a year then on your bike. But I fear arsenal will roll out a series of bland excuses, do nothing and settle for trying to get to Gdańsk next season. Pissed off with this. Continual shite. Off to watch the 89 dvd, those boys had bollocks
Watch the first half again and see how Ozil had to man mark Jorginho. I very much doubt Hazard is told to man mark anyone. Ozil was poor, the whole team were poor. We took 7 points from the 21 available. We have played some of the worst most negative football I’ve seen for many a year. We have conceded 51 goals which is emery’s average at Sevilla. If you at bigger picture you will see that this is mostly emery’s doing. He is out of his depth and my guess is you will all be on here next season… Read more »
This club has been slowly rotting for the last decade and the American ownership has been a big mistake but most decisions went through Wenger. He has to take some of the blame. The board should’ve acted earlier to replace him. We could all see the slide. Ironic that we beat Chelsea in the FA Cup which meant he got another contract when it was clear his time was up. And now, ironically we lose to Chelsea when the win would have given us Champions League football.
“…all the old Wenger boys”… you mean like 18 players, of a 23 man squad? Get real man and leave Wenger out of this! At least, majority of these boys won 3 cup finals within the last 5 seasons.
What we need is an injection of competitive players in areas of weakness and start to build a winning feeling again.
Anyone want a season ticket? Such a limp performance, esp from players who claim to be determined to play in the CL!
Unai made some selection mistakes during a crucial part of the PL run-up, but he has largely improved this team. We’ve still come up short(some might rightly point to aforementioned selection mistakes), but we were in the mix for longer, both in the PL and in the EL. As disappointing as the end has been, I think this season has been a small if insignificant step forward compared to the last. Even with a small(ish) transfer budget, I can see us taking another few steps in the right direction next season. I don’t have anything against people who feel that… Read more »
this “in the mix” rhetoric is becoming tiresome and is plainly stupid. We were not in the mix because of how good we are, but because the rest kept slipping up and giving us chances. If you swapped out everyones last 10 results from this season to Wenger’s last, we would have gotten Champions league. We failed even worse this season because everyone around us was falling apart and we were still not good enough. oh and by the way, what has improved this season? please dont say nonsense like passion, aggression, heart, desire, tenacity, competitiveness or all the meaningless… Read more »
How has he improved us??? Stop making excuses. We fucked the last 6 games and missed out on top 4 then bottled it tonight. We need to be ruthless with players and the coach. Everyone took the piss when wenger said 4th was a trophy. Now our best expectation is the Everton cup (7th)
What has he improved?
Our defence? Our attack? Our style of play? Our pressing?
Improved the ability of our fan base to cry like Game of Thrones, ‘oh no they killed the dragon’, bitches. All the while falling over themselves for the Emmy of who cried the best/most while repeating the same drivel ad nauseam. I thought Wenger was good, but Emery has raised the stakes…Jai, you might just win it this year. Best of luck!
Our players, style of pressing and tactical approach to the big games. Bellerin, Kolasinac, Iwobi have all improved and even xhaka(marginally) has shown improvement this year. We’ve done better in games vs the top 6. We did well against the smaller teams too until the end of the season when injuries began to pileup(ramsey and torreira in addition to Bellerin holding and welbeck earlier). We went from being midtable to top of the league in ground covered, and if you seriously cannot see a difference in our pressing ability when we use it, I’m wasting my time here. While many… Read more »
our pressing? Really? what has all that pressing gotten us? more goals conceded. We press, but its bad and we leave holes behind. We were better with Sanchez pressing alone. Our players? You mention our fullbacks but fail to see that our style of play is to get them on the ball more than any other players. they just touch the ball more and are more involved, not better. This is not Hector’s best season, the liecester season was. Kolasinac has gotten worse on the ball this season. This is also Iwobi’s best season, appearance wise. He has just played… Read more »
Awful from emery. How did he not see that chelsea were killing us in small spaces. Why he didnt do a tactical change at half time to counter theire style ? He waited too long too To make change. At 2-0 our players were devastated, it was obvious the third was coming. I know he didnt have much choice but guendouzi was a bad change, once again he didnt run to prevent a goal. He is too young, the gap was too big. You can t play in ligue 2 and then be in a european cup final without having… Read more »
We had more shots than Chelsea but only hit the target twice. Someone better at stats than me can probably explain what happened there. Does anyone else feel numb now?
“Giroud’s goal changed the game”
Well no shit sherlock, first goals in games often do that.
You can imagine he was more emotional than that comment and Largely was stating obvious to avoid other more tedious options ala blame games etc
Feel like giving up hope, can’t see where the improvement comes from. It was just so typically arsenal the way this game played out. I will be there supporting next season, but it’s like being in a relationship where you are the only one invested. Hopefully we can work some magic in the transfer window and get rid of some of this deadwood. I guess when you hit rock bottom the only way is up. But we e got to stick together, The only upside is that no one even pays attention to AFTv anymore cos it’s got no shock… Read more »
Spineless c*nts. Iwobi and Willock showed more desire in 5 mins than ozil has in 18 months. Emery needs to grow a pair and either choose the 11 he believes in or fuck off. Only the mugsmashers can ease the pain of yet another dismal showing in a European final
please. When Ozil was dropped for a month and we were still shit, people kept banging on about how Emery had to introduce him into games because he was our best playmaker.
? Far too accepting of the defeat in my mind for a head coach/manager At this level. He should be angry with how the game played out. And instead of grimacing and stroking his chin from the sidelines be changing it up, instructing his players.and trying to influence the game. At half time the message should have been “ok first half, good pressing and restriction of their key players. Up the intensity do not let them into our final third and keep Hazard contained. Be patient and do not try and rush a goal conceding possession” Instead it takes them… Read more »
Actually Maitland-Niles poor judgements and his notorious inability to quickly get up and track back after loosing possession of the ball contributed immensely to the lost. He’s too young to do such and Iwobi /Willocks showed more passion than he did (and I’m not talking about elbowing opponents down in the penalty box) for such a young player that came through our feeder teams. He has quality, but there’s something about his mentality towards games that’s not quite right and he needs to urgently work on it for his own sake.
I honestly can’t see what he has changed for us this season. You see managers come into clubs that are leaking goals and within a few games they are better. Maybe not world beaters, but a tangible improvement.
From the stuff I read about Emery when he first arrived and how he paid such close attention to detail and all the analysis he did, I thought we would see a much tighter defence at the very least, but to me we are much the same as last season – a disaster waiting to happen.
See Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp finished 8th then lost against Emery’s Sevilla, his team also shipped many goals.
The difference is they have a smart board. Spend money. Sell for big price. Reinvest. We are on a different model. Spend a little. Let them run down their contracts for free, or ruin our wage structure.shit in pants. Repeat.
I disagree with people who say we dominated the first half. Chelsea were very happy to give our two fullbacks space knowing they can’t cross, and knowing their central defenders are bigger and stronger than our strikers and could head away anything if we did manage to make a decent ball in. They had the best chance of the half (Giroud) and apart from the Auba half chance we never created anything.
All those telling Mr Emery to *fuck off* after one season need a reality check. Despite an incredible amount of points this season how many titles/cups has Klopp won since he became manager of Liverpool … yeah that’s right none to date although we are praying he beats the spuds in the CL final but that’s to come. Even Saint Pep did not win anything in his first season at Man City ! It’s will likely take 3/4 seasons of hard work and good buying before we are challenging for the PL and Cl again so take a chill pill… Read more »
My kind of Gooner
All fair points but….
As much as I dislike chelski they have just won one of the only two European trophies and will probably sack their manager. Ruthless. That reflects their owner, yes he may be despicable, as are citeh’s but would you stop supporting arsenal if our owners had their reputation/history but were that determined to win things. I fear we are still too wedded to the arsene view of principles first and ffp compliant when now the only way to win is to join them cos we ain’t beating them
So let’s give two more years to Emery with this squad and get to where Liverpool is, loool.
No, Emery has just a year left and at the end of it we should decide whether a new coach is the best option. If we can upgrade, we definitely should!
But I was one of the Gooners who felt we should have been trying to upgrade on Wenger well before Leicester beat us to the title in 2016. Even after that, we were told to shut up and be patient: “There’s no point – we’ve got to give him money to spend and see if he can turn things around”.
Well, Wenger got more time. Emery deserves that too.
Chelsea had Hazard and Kante 2 wc players.In the last epl game these two were quietly marshalled and Arsenal won .I don’t know why Emery couldn’t replicate the same strategy. One more thing is Emery ‘s passing game. Notice how Hazard ran at the gunners defenders. This was what Arsnal shd have done withIwobi from start.I had been saying many moons/suns ago that what most defenders dislike is a striker running at them. Hopefully Emery can begin his cull,and stiffen the defence.Believe me even if the gunners get to the cl,they can hardly get past the gs . The gap… Read more »
AFC beat Parma in ‘94 with Selley, Morrow, Mcgoldrick, Jenson, Campbell and a pissePaul Merson high on cocaine.
Balls…guts…heart …fight…desire.
F**k this team of bottlers.
Im really trying to find a positive moving forward. But all I see are problems. Firstly proposed 40m budget is bollocks. We need triple that and cut in half Ozil wage. Losing Ramsey for free is dumb as well. Defense is a shambles. Koscielny on his last legs. Mustafi… don’t even get me started… Monreal probably past his best as well. We desperately need high quality centre back/half. I know Im preaching to the converted here but trying to find a ray of sunshine in the dark…
I have always held the belief Ozil was going through some tormented times and would prove himself this season, and if ever there was a time to do it this final was it. Sadly, he just doesnt have the confidence anymore to be the player he was. Reluctantly, I now am convertted and agree he has to go. Still love the guy for who he is, but he isnt a fit for Arsenal now. Today was just the final nail in that coffin of his Arsenal career.
Its not just Ozil. Earlier it was Mustafi. Now its Ozil. The sooner some (most ) people get over the fact that it isn’t about these usual scapegoats alone the better. Our defense was pants today. We lost the plot after the first goal went in (even though we had time to cull it back) Where was the composure at the back (without Mustafi) Instead now the ire is directed at Ozil. Where were the strikers today? If you are ‘world class’, you make things happen. Slow as mud Giroud scored. Where was ‘bags of pace’ Auba? Where was ‘world… Read more »
Ozil and his invisibility cloak.
I knew we’d be in trouble once we didnt take advantage of our opportunities down our left. We should have doubled up on the left with iwobi/ auba and kolasinac to open up more chances.
Its done and over. Arsenal will be lucky to finish 4ht next season. The game has changed.Football has become a business and who is brave to throw tons of money to get the cream of players will thrive . But there is no guarantee. MU and some other clubs come to mind.
Don’t blame Maitland. He had no backup to check Hazard.How did Pool contain Messi?They got 4/5 guys to surround him.
Hopefully Emery will get some top quality defenders other wise it will be back to the Wenger era; pretty soccer but always losing.
Agree. Overall effort went down the toilet.
Hard to blame this player or that. We were HIGHLY disjointed and lost the plot too easily after first goal.
BUT the second goal was the real killer.
I didn’t think the first goal did us in. Slow as mud Giroud somehow managed to get ahead of Koscielny but we had plenty of time (40 minutes almost) to cull it back. Instead, the defense (minus Mustafi) conspired to lose the plot. We became haphazard (no pun) and disorganised somehow. The second goal from Pedro killed us. Monreal guilty of losing him (its not the first time this season he has been positionally caught) BUT our belief is so fragile so much so it sucked the winds from our sail (whatever was left) and we did not have the… Read more »
Inconvenient truth.
Same people throwing a fit now said they wanted anyone but Wenger, were happy to give Emery a couple of seasons. Nothing could be worse than Wenger they said. Wrong.
Same people complained about GIroud being too ‘slow’, wanted him sold. Aubameyang has ‘bags of pace’ (Must have left it at the station), Lacazette is ‘world class’ they said.
Anyone but Mustafi at the back would be better.
You have to wonder.
It wasn’t pretty during Wenger’s final years but at least we were glorious failures then, whereas we are just failures now? This season is killing me like no other season, and there were some pretty bad seasons out there.
Giroud’s goal changed the game? No shit einstein.
Maybe this is the best outcome. We will see this year if Emery is a world class coach who can bring us a Champions League place as Pochettino did, without money. And also, besides results I would like to see our team playing nice football, like before 2012.
Promote youngsters, take risks and buy cheap young players from Holland, Portugal, Germany, Scandinavia, and develop a team not just a collection of mercenaries.
i just want to die
is this real?
If we look at results, and even more so our game play after Ramsey injury… without him we have a big big hole in midfield, both in drive and connecting with our top 2-3 players. Hopefully iwobi will grow in menthal strength and with both hands grasp the opportunity of filling in both for Ramsey and özil, if özil is still with us next year I Will cancel my sky sports account. Defence? I am much More worried about our attacking midfield.
Unai is in over his head. I dont think he belongs in the Top Tier of managers, you can’t beat an attacking unit with 5 defenders thats close to general knowledge if anything. You defend with 5 Midfielders letting your defenders to do the cleaning. Its as if his playing fifa or some stupid game. He is NEVER going to win a CUP at Arsenal. NEVER. Every team around us will keep getting stronger while we stick to 3412 formation. Terrible system that a good coach will pick apart.
If we can’t defend we shouldve gone toe to toe and scored more goals but second half we were parking the bus.
it did change the game, Emery. Astite observation. it was 0-0 and then Girouds goal made it 0-1 and that put Chelsea in a winning position which meant they could frustrate arsenal and counter them more effectively. very astute of you.
biggest season of Emerys career coming up. of course complicated by how much the club support him in the transfer market etc. I have to say, over the course of the season, I see no difference. the more tactically aware will, but I still see a team hot and cold in attack, and very easy to open up, with some big key player issues, and the consistent performers in the squad in decline due to age.