Unai Emery: Adios

[Tourbillion]

I will ask again, what does that have to do with Emery?

It took Mourinho a season or two at United to achieve....... oh wait.

I can name you plenty of managers who went to an unsettled team and ultimately failed.

2-3 years? Okay, let me back up a bit. My problem, isn't with the results, well my main problem I should say. The performances are.

I look at us at times and it's like Wenger is still on the bench. Forget about his stamp on the team and all the rest of it. Most of these guys aren't even his players, the club has very few Wenger disciples left.

In fact, sometimes I think this lot is still being coached by Boro Primorac the way I see us leaving acres of space in midfield, attackers standing in no man's land, defenders all out to sea

It has almost been an entire season and our style of play is generally ugly and I'm not seeing much improvement in terms of our positional play and defensive set up.

How many months does it take to tell a midfielder to stop standing so far apart from your mate?

Are we going to spend the next few years blaming Wenger's ghost for every failure on the pitch? When will the manager be held accountable?

Thank you.

 

[American_Gooner]

Unai is doing a fine job, but no surprise that the usual suspects are out with the knives again.

Certain man only post when we lose.

 

[Mo Britain]

Stats wise, our defenders are not playing bad at all. WhoScored rates Mustafi as having an average rating of 7.03. That is the best of all our CB's. We lost a bit of balance when Holding got injured and Mustafi is just out of form and low on confidence at the moment. It's our defensive organisation that has been terrible season after season. And as for VVD, he looks so much better in a better team than Southampton where he has a hard working midfield and wide forwards ahead of him.

If we'd bought VVD straight from Celtic, Wenger would have been shot at dawn.

 

[Jury]

If we'd bought VVD straight from Celtic, Wenger would have been shot at dawn.

There'd have been no smoking gun in my hand. I wanted him back then. He was highly attainable and decent ones were thin on the ground. It was a no-brainer. Can't believe Wenger wasn't interested.

 

[Jae]

Stats wise, our defenders are not playing bad at all. WhoScored rates Mustafi as having an average rating of 7.03. That is the best of all our CB's. We lost a bit of balance when Holding got injured and Mustafi is just out of form and low on confidence at the moment. It's our defensive organisation that has been terrible season after season. And as for VVD, he looks so much better in a better team than Southampton where he has a hard working midfield and wide forwards ahead of him.

Oh well if WhoScored says he's the best defender at our club then it must be true

Come off it mate, he's comfortably the worst defender at our club, he's great at some things, but he's a complete and utter liability. Every defender makes the odd mistake, but I could easily name you at least 10 goals he's cost us this season through sheer stupidity.

It's individual errors and bad decision making that have crucified us this season.

And I disagree, he might look better in this Liverpool team but he was pure class at Southampton as well. He makes Liverpool better, not the other way around.

 

[squallman]

I forgot to add, but I don't even dislike Emery. I think there might be something to work with, he made a European semi-final after all. Talk about how it's Europa League but the fact is he still did it.

He might even bring us some long needed European silverware. Guendouzi looks fine, Iwobi for a few months looked like he has improved. Sokratis looks good. Leno has improved as the season wore on.

I am not saying it's all doom and gloom or that Emery is the worst manager in the world. I'm just sick to my back teeth of people deflecting away any criticism of him with Klopp this Guardiola that like a bunch of broken records.

 

[American_Gooner]

There'd have been no smoking gun in my hand. I wanted him back then. He was highly attainable and decent ones were thin on the ground. It was a no-brainer. Can't believe Wenger wasn't interested.

Wenger should’ve gone with his own opinion instead of listening to nonces like Rowley and Grimandi, could’ve had a VVD-Kante-Griezmann spine.

 

[Jury]

Wenger should’ve gone with his own opinion instead of listening to nonces like Rowley and Grimandi, could’ve had a VVD-Kante-Griezmann spine.

Even Rowley was drunk in the end. **** me. Grimandi always looked like he'd been freshly pummeled with bat with those goggly eyes... ****ing hell... Turning down studs for eunuchs for years.

 

[Jury]

Certain man only post when we lose.

We all know what's going on... Who's fooled by this faux 'support'. Wastemen.

 

[yousif_arsenal]

we all know we got the worst scouts in top 6 clubs in wenger era is just shame wenger is too loyal with them he should fire them and hire guys who know how to scout.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

Wenger should’ve gone with his own opinion instead of listening to nonces like Rowley and Grimandi, could’ve had a VVD-Kante-Griezmann spine.

Tbf he ended up at Southampton so more clubs turned him down.

But we really lost touch getting these talents here in Wenger final years. Just very sad.

 

[Rex Banter]

Wenger should’ve gone with his own opinion instead of listening to nonces like Rowley and Grimandi, could’ve had a VVD-Kante-Griezmann spine.

Nonchalant ffs. Boils your piss that does.

 

[JuanCarlosValeron]

Wenger should’ve gone with his own opinion instead of listening to nonces like Rowley and Grimandi, could’ve had a VVD-Kante-Griezmann spine.

2013: Suarez
2014: Griezmann and Sanchez
2015: Van Dijk and Kante

These signings would have been a continuation of the policy adopted by the early Wenger. Physical specimen, quality over quantity. Instead of acting in accordance with what made us succesful, we started wasting our money on several players who were not gifted with the physical qualities, which were a prerequisite from 1997-2005.

---------------------------------Szczęsny----------------------------

--Bellerin------Van Dijk----------Koscielny----Nacho---
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------Ramsey--------------------Kante----------------
---------------------------------Cazorla--------------------------------------------
--Sanchez----------------------Suarez-----------------Griez--

Arsène would have lasted another 20 years with that team. Instead he was worn down by Gabriel, Danny, Elneny, Özil and Mkhi.

 

[krackpot]

This is true and why Özil is currently a different player. He looks completely out of the game. But if you follow him carefully, after he passes the ball he frequently runs into space for the return pass and doesn’t get it back, particularly from Kola and Iwobi. Hardly surprising he looks frustrated and gives up after a while. He’d be a different player for Barca.

So true and people often don't acknowledge the effect of off-the-ball movement of the players, or e.g. which position they take when others have the ball (or the opposition). For example a lot of our problems in a 5-defender formation come from the distance between defense and attack, when the opponents press our 2 midfielders, we do not find combinations that bring the ball forward to danger zones.

Take Ramsey out, and we have just one player who makes runs without the ball (Auba), and one and a half player who can run with the ball (Iwobi, even if he makes bad decisions after the dribblings and sometimes Torreira).

However Özil is also a culprit, a player of his calibre should carry the ball a lot more often (and when he does, we score goals like against Leicester)...

Yeah and this is exactly how he got his goal vs Crystal Palace, Laca actually found him and gave him the ball back. There's been a lot of times this season where he's made that same sort of run and been in on goal but no one has picked him out.

He's not the only one either, our players too frequently either don't see runs into space by team mates or just make the wrong choice and do something else with the ball.

One Touch back pass to one of the 3 CBs. That's all I see our players do when you play the ball to them with anyone near them. No one in our team can turn with the ball, except Iwobi, Özil, Lacazette and Torreira maybe.

Which is why we get pressed out of the game

 

[Tourbillion]

One Touch back pass to one of the 3 CBs. That's all I see our players do when you play the ball to them with anyone near them. No one in our team can turn with the ball, except Iwobi, Özil, Lacazette and Torreira maybe.

Which is why we get pressed out of the game

Diaby and Wilshere used to let the ball run across them, thus wrong footing the opposition, and then burst through the centre of the pitch with the ball.

We need players who can do that.

 

[pigge]

Diaby and Wilshere used to let the ball run across them, thus wrong footing the opposition, and then burst through the centre of the pitch with the ball.

We need players who can do that.

Yeah, brilliant ability that opens up so much space to move the play forward.

 

[Mark Tobias]

Diaby and Wilshere used to let the ball run across them, thus wrong footing the opposition, and then burst through the centre of the pitch with the ball.

We need players who can do that.

Rosicky offered this as well. We desperately need a CM who can dribble his way through the centre of the pitch.

 

[Tourbillion]

Rosicky offered this as well. We desperately need a CM who can dribble his way through the centre of the pitch.

These guys all had the spatial awareness - they knew when they had that little bit of time and space in order to pull that move off.

By contrast you have guys like Xhaka, Elneny and Torreira (to a lesser extent... let's see him next season with more confidence) who don't even try to look over their shoulder when they receive the ball in an area they're likely to be pressed in. They're **** scared and would rather pass it back first time to the defender. It's no wonder our play is so useless.

 

[PoleInGoal]

I will ask again, what does that have to do with Emery?

It took Mourinho a season or two at United to achieve....... oh wait.

I can name you plenty of managers who went to an unsettled team and ultimately failed.

2-3 years? Okay, let me back up a bit. My problem, isn't with the results, well my main problem I should say. The performances are.

I look at us at times and it's like Wenger is still on the bench. Forget about his stamp on the team and all the rest of it. Most of these guys aren't even his players, the club has very few Wenger disciples left.

In fact, sometimes I think this lot is still being coached by Boro Primorac the way I see us leaving acres of space in midfield, attackers standing in no man's land, defenders all out to sea

It has almost been an entire season and our style of play is generally ugly and I'm not seeing much improvement in terms of our positional play and defensive set up.

How many months does it take to tell a midfielder to stop standing so far apart from your mate?

Are we going to spend the next few years blaming Wenger's ghost for every failure on the pitch? When will the manager be held accountable?

I see your point, of course there is no guarantee we will follow the trajectory of Liverpool and City. I just think it is important to use a bit of context when looking at what Emery has done - some people are expecting the world in his first season, sometimes it just needs to be pointed out that even other top managers have taken some time to figure things out.

I agree that our style hasn't really improved. However, I think the biggest change we've seen is Emery's flexibility in matches which has won us several points over the season. When things are not working he's not afraid to change it up and more often than not it has the desired results.

Clearly he needs to improve also with his starting XI selection as a lot of the time he gets it slightly wrong, but I will reserve judgment considering the availability problems he's had this season

 

[BigPoppaPump]

These guys all had the spatial awareness - they knew when they had that little bit of time and space in order to pull that move off.

By contrast you have guys like Xhaka, Elneny and Torreira (to a lesser extent... let's see him next season with more confidence) who don't even try to look over their shoulder when they receive the ball in an area they're likely to be pressed in. They're **** scared and would rather pass it back first time to the defender. It's no wonder our play is so useless.

Yeah we definitely need players like Rosicky, Wilshere and Diaby. We’d definitely win those 4 games a season they’re all fit to play.

Xhaka is better than all 3 simply by the fact that he’s not injured for 10 years straight. I really don’t get why Arsenal fans love Rosicky so much, has to be the biggest myth I’ve seen in football.