The "distinct style" thing is a red herring. Emery has no faith in his squad, as far as I can tell, or he would actually let them play football. It's a bad attitude, and it bleeds into the players, and the players justify the attitude in turn.
It's a downward spiral, and Emery doesn't have the tools as a manager to get out of it, because he's trying to do it through tactics and selection instead of the players themselves. He's clearly a great football mind, but he lacks the human know-how to find the solution outside of the game itself, or rather, he may not really get that the human endeavor is just as important.
