Precisely. Emery is contradicting his stance on Özil and on his playstyle by playing a 4231. Xhaka is useless at serving us as a DLP, so we play it to our fullbacks and cant build up corrrectly as we are outnumbered in midfield....Would love to see a Guendouzi-Lucas-Willock midfield for this game, would love to see this midfield going forward...and not with Joe as a 10 but more a 4-3-3 Emery!
In our situation it seems like being more solid in the midfield would actually provide a better base to create. Right now it's so disjointed. Playing with a number 10 these days is a luxury.
Please Emery try a 433 with those players (with Torreira in front of the back 4) and we will be more successful.