Unai Emery admits his side continue to lack a balance between attack and defence but he insists he continues to enjoy his day-to-day work with the players, and appreciates the support of the club hierarchy, even though he’s under considerable pressure to reverse Arsenal’s slide into mediocrity.
In the last week a range of candidates from ex-Gunner Mikel Arteta to Wolves head coach Nuno Espirito Santo have been tipped to succeed the Spaniard at the Emirates, but the Spaniard, facing the media ahead of our Europa League clash with Frankfurt, was determined to cut an optimistic character.
“The club is supporting me,” he said on Wednesday. “I feel the club is responsible in that area. I really appreciate that a lot.
“I feel strong with that support and I know my responsibility is to come back and change the situation.”
While few people expect him to see out the year at Arsenal, Emery attempted to dissect where he thinks things are going wrong.
“We need to recover the confidence,” he said, “I need to achieve good balance, and we need to be more compact.
“I am feeling responsible for my work. I know we need to improve. When I lost, I am not feeling well.
“I am feeling that responsibility to come back, the responsibility to analyse, and to work and improve to achieve our performance.
“In my work, I enjoy it. Every day I enjoy it. The players and the preparation I enjoy because I love that work.”
Asked why his side are conceding so many goals, he went on: “Really, the one thing we need is to be more compact. We are conceding more goals than we wanted and the opposition are creating more chances than we wanted. That is the first tactical issue I want to change.
“I am trying some different tactical decisions, using our players in the best possible positions for them.
“And, at the moment, we haven’t achieved that balance to be strong. I don’t think it’s the system.”
In quotes reported earlier today, Emery stressed that his side need the supporters to help the players if they are to recover their confidence.
“As a coach, each moment in my career is difficult,” he reflect.
“It’s a very good job, but it’s very hard. When you are winning, you feel the support from everybody, but when you’re not winning like in the last matches, you have some doubters.
“Really, I believe in us, the players, the group. I know I am going to work very hard to come back with this performance and take the confidence we need now. Each match is a very good opportunity. The good and bad moments come and go, but the most important thing for me is to show my work and our capacity.
“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.”
A defeat for Arsenal and Emery may not necessarily spell the end of the Spaniard’s 18 months in charge, however, were anything less than a win tomorrow be followed by more dropped points in the Premier League against Norwich on Sunday, it feels quite likely that the axe will fall.
So much waffle. Either quit or don’t – just shut up about it!
Starting to feel sorry for him now.
Me too.
Breaking News!!
@Arsenal is waiting for #BlackFriday to approch Wolves Manager Nuno Espírito Santo as they believe they can get a 50% discount.
Little do we know that wolves increased his release clause by 100% last week ?
He’s low key blaming the players & the fans for the downfall and you feel sorry for him?
No he’s not. He’s admitted he couldn’t find the balance yet. After the fans booed off the players after the Southampton game, would you rather Emery didn’t acknowledge that?
Emery was due to do a masterclass on coaching at a university this week and the students slaughtered him on social media so the university cancelled it. The man is a laughing stock and our board are prolonging this circus #?
I hope that is respectful enough for the demented wave of vengeance marching cheerfully out of obscurity into a dream. The arseblog moral police ?♂️ ??
Pink Floyd.
I don’t. remember this Ahead of Thursday night’s Europa League clash against Vitoria, he said, “Sometimes we forget the memory and we need to remember. “When I arrived, this team needed to be more competitive. Arsenal, in their history, were winning 1-0 and being very competitive, but it was not enough. “Then the process of being competitive and with improved creativity. When I arrived here, the creativity was more or less good, but being competitive was worse. that was like less than a month ago and now “We need to recover the confidence,” he said, “I need to achieve good… Read more »
I’ve lost interest in this fasade now. It’s sucking all of the enjoyment out of not just being an Arsenal fan, but even as a football supporter.
Almost feel like going into hibernation till the Kroenke Era ends.. What a shit bunch of years it’s been since KSE took charge.
It’s been bad since David Dein left. Danny fiszman and co. weren’t much better. I don’t like emery but I’m more concerned about their ability to get a good coach with the current management set up and no champions league. I also don’t understand why edu and saneho aren’t getting more blame for this season
“It’s been bad since David Dein left” – agree one hundred percent. Wenger took on way too much responsibility and I think the board didn’t help him anywhere near enough. It could have all been so different.
There’s probably some truth to this, but the fact that Dein basically engineered his own departure from Arsenal never really seems to get mentioned.
Totally agree, too, but I always thought Wenger looked much more stressed when Dein left, as though he had the weight and responsibility of the club on his shoulders alone.
Isnt he the one that brought Kroenke to our door step?
Dein leaving was a disaster, he’s said in interviews he’d have pushed to get Arsene to pay a bit more to get transfers over the line.
The transfers I always think about are Ronaldo, Alonso and Suarez, these transfers would have changed the course of the clubs history.
Also not doing everything necessary to get Mbappe over the line, is looking a bit of an error….
Arsene is a class act, but ruthlessness didn’t appear to be one of his many qualities.
He just doesn’t have the answers, please put him and us out of this misery. A nice guy bit just not capable of what we need.
And this goes to show that sometimes love isn t enough. Because whilst you may love this job, Emery, you’re certainly making me unhappy. In fact, you’re making me fall out of love with Arsenal. I used to get a genuine thrill and excitement knowing there was a game coming up. Now I’m watching games with the enthusiasm of a trip to the dentists. I don’t feel your “love” or see any signs of this getting better. Your time is up, and it’s best you go. No hard feelings -you just bit off more than you can chew. I thank… Read more »
Exactly, hard to feel sorry for a guy who has sucked the joy of watching Arsenal out of me. One of the few things to look forward to after a tiring week at work.. Not anymore
The majority of our defenders and midfielders just aren’t good enough, that’s not an Emery issue, that’s a poor scouting and recruitment issue. Sokratis is what you get when your budget for a centre half is £16 million Luiz is what you get for £7million Chambers is technically a good footballer, but awful on the back foot, and beyond clumsy in the challenge. Lichtstiner is what you get when your budget for a backup right back is £0 Niles needs a loan, he’s got talent and athleticism, but he’s struggled at left back and right back, because he’s not a… Read more »
Wenger had the same issue simply accommodating Laca and Auba, which is really the predicament, Ozil is his own problem, and then add Pepe to the mix, smart.
If Auba, Laca or Ozil were Pepe’s age, we’d maybe get away with it, but the prior 3 are all not down to run like that, and then have an impact, not for a whole season.
When Özil, Pepe, Laca and Auba will be our last problems, we will be safe…
so true, when emery just got appointed everyone was saying about “several transfer windows” and “patience” needed to rebuild the squad, now 18 months later, one decent window, and everyone wants quick results and some heads rolling….
The club is being far from ‘responsible’ for supporting him. In my opinion it’s the opposite, it’s turning into pure negligence at this point to keep presisting with a manager, through no fault of his own, is a square peg in a round hole.
Raul and co are burning through every piece of goodwill that they built up over the summer with every passing day Emery is still manager.
I would have felt bad for him if he didn’t blatantly lie about wanting to be protagonists and wanting to win every match 5-4 rather than 1-0
to be fair he’s done his best to concede those 4 goals at least
It is interesting to see how Emery and the club’s preferred journo outlets have begun to address topical points of the moment from the fan base and bloggers. The Wenger pressers wouldn’t address the ire of the week. As with all clubs, I’m sure, Emery is being briefed on the sentiment of the league, fan base and press from the outside.
I guess I have found it interesting how much this coaching staff and the executive team have addressed topical items directly or indirectly in the post-Wenger years. Maybe I’m alone there…
I don’t care about their carefully crafted responses. The only response I want to see is results on the field. Improved performances, and show some basic level of competence from the board all the way down to the players. Nobody at arsenal has covered themselves in glory, recently
This is tantamount to admitting failure. He may be a nice guy with all the right intentions but ultimately he has had a trial period of 18 months and has made things much worse than they used to be. Most normal people moving to an ordinary job have a 3 month probation period to prove themselves capable. The longer this farce goes on the more likely it will become that we lose Auba and Laca along with Xhaka, Torreira and perhaps several others too. I know who I would rather keep! Thanks for trying Unai and all the best in… Read more »
I think the first two words would have sufficed, Unai!!
beat me to it;)
The football executives failure to pull the trigger in a timely fashion is very concerning. Hiring a manager that doesn’t work is normal, sacking them in a timely manner should be as well. It’s unsustainable to have a fans vs club battle every time we need to fire a manager.
definitely, if the next guy fails, and is prolly more likely than not, can’t have this dithering again.
and getting really sick of the stuff in the press implying cos we had Arsene for 20+ decades that we somehow don’t understand modern management, nearly all coaches are ‘failures’, we get it, sometimes it doesn’t work, and both parties move on, this isn’t some attack on Emery personally, just how the game is today, but the way they are dragging it out is unfair on everyone, and bad exec work full stop, and is destroying the reputations of everyone involved.
Exactly, a coach that doesn’t work is the rule, not the exception. Coaches that last for more than two to three seasons are really rare these days. This is why modern setups make it as painless as possible to sack coaches.
This is the whole point of a Director of Football approach, it makes chopping and changing coaches very easy. Your squad is built on the club’s philosophy and it is up to the coach to adapt. If it doesn’t work you find a new coach, and the cycle goes on and on.
Is it true that Emery has a secret about Raul and that’s why he can’t sack him?????? I mean what is the point having the guy around, we are already fucked anyway.
Let alone the position on the table, most probably we will lose some key players if Emery stays even until the summer. And then it will be a pretty big problem to rebuild the team (what players can we attract then?) and find a new manager. We will most likely lose even the Europa league as competition that, more or less, keeps some money flow. This man is totally lost and I don’t want the club to follow him…
Anyone who wanted to replace Arsene has big balls (likewise Fergie at Man united). Emery hasn’t made me a happy man in the past 2 years, but I will say I respect his efforts and I do think he is a great manager who just made mistakes like anyone will. Emery made several changes to the squad, backroom, pretty harsh on the players which was the opposite of Wenger, we also sign plenty of players. one thing is clear, a new manager doesnt guarantee anything, but it’s also stupid to do the same things over and over. Good luck to… Read more »
Boring…everything about arsenal is boring now. It’s like we are in a loop of ‘boringness’. We drop points…manger says…’just wait I will fix it next match’…next match comes and we drop points again. Manager says ‘ I think I can fix it, next match… Rinse and repeat. Even arseblog and the comment has become boring too. I just wish he will resign for all our sanity sake.
“I am trying some different tactical decisions, using our players in the best possible positions for them.”
For 1.5 years?
“And, at the moment, we haven’t achieved that balance to be strong. I don’t think it’s the system.”
Then what is it?
For all the blame aimed at emery ( he does deserve it) it should be aimed towards raul sanhelli. They were both in spain one at Barcelona emery at sevilla and valencia prior. Emery’s teams have always had problems they have never been balanced – yes he can point to the europa league and his trophies but even at PSG with the superior players he couldnt do it there either. Falling out with players ben arfa etc . Raul was at the all conquering barcelona during this period he knew of this man’s limitations. There is an interview with raul… Read more »
I’m guessing a lot of people accept if you come up short. But keep making excuses one after another and blatantly asking fans to support just because they are fans is arrogant and delusional.
You’re not feeling well, this job is not for you so it is making you ill. Is that not enough of a warning signal?
So fed up with this club.
Really seems like a nice person, Just hasn’t gone well for him at the club, No ill will towards him as a person, just think we need a different manager now.
For someone who won 3 Europa league cups, it’s staggering how far he is out of his depth here.
I feel like it’s ‘the fans vs the club’ in almost every situation with Arsenal – and that isn’t right.
The distinct lack of communication from the decision makers to us helps create the toxicity that we see because it stokes the flames of anger and confusion.
For a club who allege to champion ‘victory through harmony’ they sure do their best to destroy any hope of it!
So bored of hearing this man speak.
And that’s not a dig at his language skills, even in his Spanish interview he basically said the same things as in English.
Using our players in their best Position ????REALLY,, this is another reason why he’s gotta go,,
Agree with the coach team lacks balance hence you can’t achieve desires compactness. To me this the reason to lack of this is the players though good aren’t complementing each other well in terms of there abilities and limits. Player composition needs to reviewed to stem out misfit. You may be good but a misfit.
From the excerpt above, selectively picking on two things Unai said… 1. ‘system is not the problem’ That means it’s either the preparation or the players lack of effort, players capability or lack of a particular type of players itself. I also will concede that although the summer signings were good box office but (may be) not the players he wanted for his system to work. Given above, why not change the system, considering changing players wholesale is much tougher. Or to put it another way you might have the best system used by a team like the Barca (aka… Read more »
“..were anything less than a win tomorrow be followed by more dropped points in the Premier League against Norwich on Sunday, it feels quite likely that the axe will fall.” Neither we nor Arseblog know what is going on in the management group. It is impossible to work as a manager if you have been given a vote of non confidence, so everybody will express and give Emery their support until the last hour. Things must stay very thight (they are good at it – there were no leaks ahead of the hiring of Emery or the procurement of Pepe).… Read more »
Not gonna lie, I feel bad for the guy, call me a p*ssy, but is never fun watching people having a hard time. I do think he could be a good manager in a mid table team or in another league, but he just wasn’t right for us. We need to move forward asap, and he might too to get some peace of mind. At this point, really, is the best for all parties involved.
You don’t say?
Today: I’ll keep failing to find balance forever.