On Sunday, Unai Emery made his managerial PL debut and it didn’t go so well. After a promising pre-season, Arsenal was brought down back to Earth by defending champions Manchester City. Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva were the goalscorers in a game in which The Citizens were the superior opponent. Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville had this to say about the match:
“It’s too early [to judge Emery]. He’s trying to rewind 20 years of culture, training, the mindset of everything and what you saw today was Emery, who is the head coach of the team, but a performance of a team who were still playing the same way.
“I watch those players and they look one-paced to me, they don’t look like they’re accelerating the game. You look at City going forward and the speed that’s in their game.
“Emery will want a lot more intensity in his team and to be fair, these players have played in their comfort zone for the last two or three years and Arsene Wenger has been the fault of that, according to everybody, but the reality is the players have now got no-one else to look at. He’ll get rid of those players if they don’t start playing at a higher intensity.
Unai Emery has work to do
Indeed, Arsenal was far from the possession-hogging team we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. Aubameyang was left on an island of his own, while the rest of the team was defending. Because of Manchester City’s high press, The Gunners couldn’t get the ball to their attacker, as the supply line was being cut off before it could supply. Matteo Guendouzi was active all over the pitch, but his youth showed on several occasions, most notably when he misjudged the ball and allowed Aguero to have a one-on-one with Petr Cech. Mesut Ozil had a bad day as well. For him, inaccurate passes in the final third were a habit more than an exception.
New Sky Sports commentator Alex Scott was a bit more positive in his judgment:
“He [Emery] said he was disappointed because he wanted to see more belief but I actually think when it was 1-0, Arsenal showed more character because at times last season, they would have gone in at half-time 3-0 down.”
Intensity and character are two things which have been missing in Arsenal over the past few years. Unai Emery will have to instil those traits in his team as soon as possible. A run of wins will do wonders for the players’ confidence, but before that can happen, Emery will need to complete the construction of this new building. The old one was torn down after 22 years of service, yet the smell still remains. He’ll need to do it fast as well, because as Graeme Souness said:
“Time is not the manager’s friend,”
