Unai Emery - Initial thoughts: Page 38 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Unai Emery - Initial thoughts

Bold Tone

Claudius wrote:
Present squad value is what you have on hand to mount your title challenge. When City has a squad that is with 2-3x yours, all things being equal you will likely struggle against them

True but that's a different branch altogether.
When comparing our progress, relative to teams without sugar-daddies, i feel "net spend" provides many more answers.

Qwiss

That net spend issue takes a long time to solve though and a fair bit of luck and good scouting. In the mean time signing players who are 30ish is pointless. At least you know we can make profit on Torreira, Guendouzi, etc It'll be another 3 years dealing with the likes of Ozil, Mhki, Sokratis, Monreal, Kos, etc None of them should be first choice now, all are on biggish wages and will be hard to move on at their ages. We need to stop making those sort of signings as they are dead money.

awooga83

I think we need to be more ruthless in exploiting other clubs scouting. There are really good premiership teams with great scouting teams that pick up some decent players who haven't been taken on by some of the big European sides because they've had to become better to compete. There can be great players there a Mane, Kante or Mahrez. Also applies across Europe to, if we can't match when the big boys come in we have to become better at cherry picking those emerging stars from other teams and accept taking some risks/duds.

Anzac

awooga83 wrote:
I think we need to be more ruthless in exploiting other clubs scouting. There are really good premiership teams with great scouting teams that pick up some decent players who haven't been taken on by some of the big European sides because they've had to become better to compete. There can be great players there a Mane, Kante or Mahrez. Also applies across Europe to, if we can't match when the big boys come in we have to become better at cherry picking those emerging stars from other teams and accept taking some risks/duds.

Agreed - and I suspect that is why we now have Mislintat.

That said I also think part of our earlier issues in not doing so was perhaps some delusion of grandeur under AW in him not willing to sing players unless they could improve on the quality we already had, and also regarding our status as a top4/CL club.

Our net spend of late and our wages reportedly have us in the top3 in the PL and top10 in UEFA, yet we are the only club in that top 10 who are not in the CL.

[font=Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Sans-Serif]We may very well need to go backwards re a slash and burn of the current squad in order to go forward.[/font]

GooneriC

My thinking is one of his first priorities would be making us hard to beat or at least difficult to score against. In every game this season we have given away so many chances to score , it's like nothing at all has changed and in some cases it's worse than before. Haven't seen much improvement, I know the injuries don't help but that performance against Southampton and Liverpool, and even Brighton who could have scored more, does not look like anything is happening to make us harder to break down. It's been like this all season , only masked by the form of our striking department.

Bold Tone

I agree.
My belief was that we would improve by default as nothing could be worse than Wenger's defensive coaching.
Now we've gone half the season with only one clean sheet, it's getting worrying especially when reading about how many goals Emery's UEFA winning Sevilla side kept shipping.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Yep all that is pretty scary.

Anzac

I thought we'd struggle until we got the midfield sorted, along with a starting CB pairing that works.

Still think it will take some time as it seems the players are devoid of the fundamentals of defending, both as individuals and as a unit. It also appears that the mental scars are deeply imbedded n terms of a lack of fight / resistance to abject performances as seen v LFC = too many players are too familiar with the lack of accountability as it's not like we can replace the entire team.

dreamlord

I was hoping for him to add some sort of stability, but he's alienated 3 of our best attacking players and done nothing to improve the defense. With our lack of funds, I'm struggling to see how he turns us into a top 4 team again.

Anzac

dreamlord wrote:
I was hoping for him to add some sort of stability, but he's alienated 3 of our best attacking players and done nothing to improve the defense. With our lack of funds, I'm struggling to see how he turns us into a top 4 team again.

At some point our injuries and lack of funds is going to force a decision as to which comp we will have to prioritise - PL or Europa.

Qwiss

Bold Tone wrote:
I agree.
My belief was that we would improve by default as nothing could be worse than Wenger's defensive coaching.
Now we've gone half the season with only one clean sheet, it's getting worrying especially when reading about how many goals Emery's UEFA winning Sevilla side kept shipping.

flobaba

Jeez. How hard is it to keep a clean sheet. We are conceding at about the same clip now as we did when Cech was in goal

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

So many long balls over the top. How can our supposed tactician allow such a high line with Wenger-esque pressing from the front?

JazzG

The recent results don't surprise me, even during our unbeaten run we had some shambolic performances where we somehow managed to win or get a draw. That kind of luck isn't going to last, we have been giving away chances for fun all season long. Sooner or later teams will start putting them away. Fundamentally we have been a flawed team all season, we can not defend and despite having an extra holding player in the middle somehow look worse defensively than we did under Wenger.

We can talk about how we need players etc all day long but worse teams will show up at Anfield and not be 4-1 down at half time. That is on the manager, he has to be able to organise them and the players look as lost as they did under Wenger defensively.

arsedocmd

It was mildly getting better, the defense prior to man United, then the injuries and everything went to shit again.

JazzG

I agree the injuries don't help but look at the defenders we had at Anfield, other teams will stick out worse players and not concede 4 goals by half time. We are one of the few so called big clubs who get regular whoopings, we all blamed Wenger for it so Emery shouldn't be shielded from blame either. The players were all over the place but so was the system.

Gazza M

arsedoc md wrote:
It was mildly getting better, the defense prior to man United, then the injuries and everything went to shit again.

Agree with that. Kos and papa have been thrown together, and injuries to fullbacks haven't helped. Really anfield is the only battering we've suffered this season. Looking at liverpools form, we played them at the worst time just as they were clicking into gear and our injuries had bitten

Our defending should be better though, no question about it. Over-comitted defenders getting caught ot by long punts into the channels was a wenger hallmark

Bold Tone

I agree more with Jazz as, even ignoring the Anfield result, our defence has looked shaky the whole season bar the odd game (spuds for example) here and there.
The opposition just have to put in one good pass, through ball or break from their half and we are at sixes and sevens.
When we lose the ball cheaply on the halfway line, (see Ozil's dummy the other day, Torreira yesterday, Xhaka countless times, etc), we get sliced open however poor the opposition team.
This was something i associated with Wenger and thought anybody else would stamp out as it never seems to work in our favour and we really have to manufacture our goals with precise build-up play, mad luck or individual brilliance.

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