The Gooner is being crystal clear. Emery must go

https://www.onlinegooner.com/articles/view/4836

Hey Rich,
I think many of us, possibly yourself included, have way higher expectations of this squad than we should. We are a better side this season compared to how we were the last few months of last season.

I think we all need a dose of reality. We have a LONG way to go. We were/are a couple clubs from a mid table side. Emery will need minimally 3 seasons. And I'm including having decent money to play with in that time. This summer, surprisingly, we had a good transfer season but there are a lot of new faces and its a huge project to get a settled XI playing in his system. Its a huge ask that requires time and that time will include results like what we have.

I like Emery. I think a lot of us have an over inflated view of where Arsenal is. We are living off our name and stature from 15 years ago. We are like a mini version of Milan in Serie A, where they haven't been better than 5th for the last few years. Emery has to do a whole lot with a disinterested owner. I think if we make top 4 this season and that's a big if, it will be because Chelsea, Man Utd and Tottenham have bad seasons.

Liverpool outplayed us with great team football. There was no way we were going to win at Anfield in our present state and I'll even add a 'draw' that. We'd have to play out of our skins and the planets align to get anything out of that game. We didn't lose because of individual errors, we were thoroughly outplayed by a club that no one would be surprised if they beat Barca. The best Liverpool side I've ever seen in my time as a football fan. We got off lucky with 3-1 considering the gulf in class at the moment.

We would have lost this match to Watford last season. We would never have gone up 2-0 within a half hour last season nor any of the previous few seasons. The fact is we were hanging on a thread to Europa football given the progress of the sides below us and how bad we are defensively.

We will need a lot of time. Expecting Emery to get to CL football a year after the job is crazy considering the clubs above us, the state of the squad when he came, the lack of interest and more importantly money from the owner. Emery is doing well considering all these factors.

Arsenal fans can be accused of having unreasonable expectations given the present hurdles.

If you play Arsenal I would be instructing players to shoot from absolutely anywhere. There is the obvious chance of a goal, but if you hit it high or wide your next chance for a goal is going to be served on a plate from the goal-kick.

Maybe if we place Lacazette and Aubameyang on our goal line when we play out from the goal kick that way if it goes wrong again we’ve got someone on hand to block their shot ?


Problem solved

I would also add, that Emery getting to a European cup final while getting top 6 should be considered a successful inaugural season. He was new to the club, culture, still has language issues, inherited a squad that was bereft of belief in a bad state of affairs (disinterested owner with no funds), following an iconic manager.

I'd say he had a successful first season given all that. I was willing and expecting any manager to slip to 7th or 8th initially. I thought we had a little far to go to hit rock bottom (8th possibly) before turning the corner after Wenger.

I don't think so. Most on here do not have expectations of a title challenge, and will fully accept that we will have bad games and lose games this season. But given the relative strength of our squad, the money spent on it in the last 2 seasons (plus the relative strengths/weaknesses of Spurs, Man U, Chelsea) I think it is totally acceptable to expect a top 4 finish (and anything below that to be a failure) and to expect some tangible improvements in our defence. From where I'm sitting things have got worse in defence.

Emery has had more than 1 season, 2 pre-seasons and 3 transfer windows and none of us know what his best 11 is or his preferred tactic. More to the point, whatever tactics he has us playing leave us (in most games) being out shot and often 2nd best in general play to the opposition. The 22 game unbeaten run contained a lot of luck, I recall home games v Everton and Watford we ran out 2-0 winners but were really up against it and probably not the better team until we scored. Even now Aubamayang's finishing and conversion rate are saving us most games.

I will always maintain you do not need top class defenders to form a robust defense. We've seen countless groups of journeymen pro's get cobbled together and just taught shape, discipline and no risk defending. I'm not saying Arsenal should suddenly play like Burnley - but when you're 2-0 up away from home then perhaps it is time to play a bit more like Burnley.

The reality is with this group of players any decent manager should look at this and see a great opportunity at some easy wins and easy fixes. I reckon it should be far easier for a manager to take a team of players who don't know how to defend and know nothing about shape and work them in to a decent unit than take an average player and try to get him to have flair and vision and lethal finishing.

We need time to be up with Liverpool and City, but we shouldn't need that much time to resolve some of the basic problems that have plagued us for years. I don't see any evidence of that. Players can also shoulder some of the blame but when you go through 100 different players and the same things are happening as a team you need to start questioning the method.

7 of that starting 11 (if we include AMN) are players signed post wenger (leno, AMN, Sokratis, Luiz, Guendouzi, Cellabos, Pépé). Kolasinac will be replaced by Tierney. Aubamayang is untouchable and a gift to any new manager. This is very much Emery's team now. The squad may have some bad players from Wenger's era but the turnover in players has been vast enough in the last 2 windows that Emery has the choice not to pick any of those players from that era and not significantly weaken the team.

If Emery did say it, which I’ve no proof of but have no reason to disbelieve it, Top Gun won’t like this which I’ve copied.

Emery on Xhaka: "He gives us a very good balance with the ball & without the ball. I think he's very important for us. We can talk about the defects for every player, for him also, but we can speak about positive things, the very positive performances he gives us in most matches"

I just do not understand what Emery's footballing philosophy is. You see City and Liverpool and they have a definite way of playing. Yes, players may be chopped and changed but the basic gameplan remains the same.

You could have driven a double-decker bus through the centre of our midfield yesterday, even before we went 2-0 up (against the run of play). That cannot be part of any serious gameplan.

Well if he did say that I’m staggered. He should be keeping his head down

Xhaka is the reason we haven’t been able to control midfields for several seasons now.

I find it hysterical the way the crowd shouts shooot when he gets the ball. He’s only scored 7 goals for arsenal and you’d have thought he slams a 30 yarder in most weeks the way people carry on. It mystifies me the way he seems to have had our fans and managers fooled

To summarise how I think we are going this season and the Liverpool, Spurs & Watford games I will use an Australian slang term - we are rooted.

As you say each person will have their own view.

Despite the brilliance of Aubameyang I saw a relentless succession of tactical errors and individual errors. It was about as far removed from my view of a “decent team performance” as is possible.

That’s nothing to do with comparing them to the invincibles. It’s just a basic expectation of us looking like a football team instead of a disorganised rabble.

I glad that you’re happy with things though. That is a comfort that unfortunately I do not have.

They are bottom of the table with a single point. It was as close to a gimme away 3 points as it gets and we fecked up. A schoolboy team would get shouted at for the errors made.

Forget Man City and Liverpool, Watford had a game plan. The thing I hated the most about the late Wenger era, was total predictability of Plan A every single week. So we go and replace him with someone who is almost the same. Are we spoilt to want a manager that can organise a defense? Or to expect anything but raw panic everytime the ball is lost? I dont think so. If we try to play it out from the back again next week then I honestly hope we get thrashed because that is exactly what we deserve.

Hi ltg,

That's exactly how I saw it. I think your phrase "disorganised rabble" sums us up very nicely. In truth we've been like that for most of the last decade.

I do not think there is any excuse with the amount of money in the modern game for a team to be so unprofessional, badly organised and ill-disciplined. As Rich said earlier you can't turn average players into worldbeaters but you can, at the very least, coach a defence into an organised unit.

Was Torreira injured? I fail to understand why you need a so called range passing midfielder like Xhaka in the lineup when you have Ceballos and Özil starting as well. It's like Emery is simply hoping that if he rotates enough the dials will rollover onto a jackpot combination. I simply don't get it.

And it can be done as a single match tactic too. Evidenced by the countless park the bus efforts by PL teams against us which Wenger never managed to figure out what to do about

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... defensive/

This is exactly right

Or even just hoick it deep into our half. Then press.

We seem to have no tactical idea about playing away from home. Yesterday's capitulation was so predictable. Its farcical.

A reason to certainly ditch the diamond. Xhaka with no mobility and no pace in the centre and the two others being asked to cover too much of the pitch laterally because there is no wide midfielder.

I was angry and frustrated at the end of the game HOWEVER, I know where Arsenal are right now in the long road back and we are a 6th or 7th place side with a lot of issues. That kind of side are going to have games like this. I am not happy with where we are but I am not naïve about where we are, if that makes sense. I think we are on the right track. We have the right manager for us. A manager who has both managed and had success at a smaller club (Sevilla) but also has experience with a big club in the elite of Europe (PSG) who can handle that kind of club if or when we get back to that status.

What makes you say we are a 6th or 7th pace side with a lot of issues? We should have finished 4th last year and we spent well in the summer, buying one of the world's supposed best up-an-coming talents in Pépé, a young LB tipped for great things and bringing in a very talented Spanish CM on loan.

We cleared out a lot of deadwood and lowered the average age of the squad dramatically to take us from one of the oldest to one of the youngest squads. We still have issues, yes, but far less than before the summer, at least on paper.

City and Liverpool are untouchable but with the investments we made in the Summer Emery has no excuse not to challenge for 3rd or 4th spot.

Just want to add to the chorus of disapproval at yesterday's performance. Wouldn't be an exaggeration to say Watford could have totally demolished us - they had 8 or 9 really good chances/efforts.

The manager just isn't convincing anyone right now and that is a big problem. When you take our end of season form into account we have been pretty dire for a good while now.

The excitement of adding all the new players is quickly turning to the feeling of same auld shite. In September! Even Arsene dragged it out to January most years!!

We had no midfield yesterday. How huge a gap did we leave at times in the middle in our half defending? Absolutely huge. Guendouzi was too far right, Ceballos left, leaving Xhaka exposed particularly if he had to cover one of the other midfielders; and no defensive effort from Özil and in the second half Pépé. It was a farce.

I’ve watched some clips again of us playing out from goal kicks and just can’t fathom what the idea is? I mean even with the opposition as cones in training it wouldn’t be obvious how we planned to move the ball upfield.

The typical set up had Sokratis and Luiz on the corners of the 6 yard box, the two full backs about 5 yards in from touch and slightly deeper than the edge of the box, and Guendouzi central on the edge of the box.
The typical play went Leno to Sokratis, as he’s closed it goes to Guendouzi who collects it facing his own goal rather than on the half turn, he’s rapidly closed and the ball goes square ish to AMN, who also has a player on him in a second. He can’t go back to Guendouzi or Sokratis so he goes down the line to Pépé who has come short, maybe 30 yards from our goal, close to the touchline and with a defender right up his backside. His only option is back to amn who then pumped a ball downfield to a lone forward with no support because all our players are within 30 yards of our own box......that is only if we haven’t lost it before the hoof.

For it to work with as little risk as possible you can’t rely on a player beating a man with skill (too risky in your own last 3rd) also you should rely on fantastic first touch or one touch football. It has to be reliant on movement and switches of play. If you’re intent on sucking the opposition in then you have to look for the space, not play it in ever decreasing small passes.

Just ditch it because we aren’t good enough to do it. Personally I’ve only seen two teams in my lifetime who are good enough to do it, the famous Barca team of 2009 (and surrounding years) and some of the most recent Man City teams - and even they conceded doing it recently.

I think Arsenal need to wake up to the fact that even teams at the bottom of the prem have very good players who are more than skilled enough to embarrass a top 6 side of given any kind of encouragement. Gone are the days when teams pack 10 men behind the ball against us

I agree, I said earlier you could have driven a double-decker bus through the centre of our midfield. Emerys tactical diamond he seems so enamoured with just does not work with the personnel he plays.

The problem with Özil is that he plays the game at his pace and his languid manner and lack of defensive effort seems to bring everyone else down to that pace. He played some brilliant passes but was a passenger defensively. His time is up.

Pépé was hugely disappointing but let's hope its just a settling-in period because he has showed glimpses of real talent in other games.

That was my observation as well, Rich. We might as well have cut out the middle men and let Leno hoof it forward because that's all we ended up doing.

I think Kevin Whitchers comments today nail this

This playing it out from the back thing. Shouldn’t it be a) done quickly before the opposition is set and b) not have to be an unbreakable policy – as in give the other side some element of doubt as to what is going to happen.


..... surely continuing to do so when the opportunity has passed and the opposition have had the chance to get themselves ready to press is utterly stupid. I mean mind numbingly utterly stupid so much so it deserves to get punished. As far as I’m concerned we drew that match purely off the back of ridiculous tactics and the coach and his management team were culpable.

Each person is entitled to their views and to believe what they want ... but that doesn't mean they aren't just plain wrong.

It was a rabble indeed. There was more organisation in the crowd moving off after the game than there was in the Arsenal 11.

Hey Rich, LTG and Soc,

Obviously City and Liverpool are miles ahead of everyone. And we lost to Chelsea handily in the Europa Cup final and until we actually show we can beat them, I have to consider them better. Good draw against Tottenham at home but I wouldn't say we are a better side right now. Man Utd is debatable but again, until we start being more consistent against them, they are a better side.

Would anyone say we can beat Soton, Leicester or Everton with any consistency? So, 6th or 7th is what we may be in here and now until we show we prove we are not. We collapsed last season. We didn't get 4th because we didn't deserve it. The old adage, the table never lies.

We have the potential to be a top 4 side this season. Chelsea aren't looking as strong, Tottenham are dropping points early. Man Utd aren't playing particularly well so far, so I think we may have an opportunity this season if erratic form is going to be rule this season for the aforementioned. So, 4th based on that. Not because we are looking particularly good. We look decent but not great. Too many new faces, etc, to get sorted, early days in the season. But I am cautiously optimistic.

Well you'll love this. The coach of my son's U15 team has them trying to do it. The fullbacks are positioned just outside the 6 yard box, the CBs in the D and the wingers at the touchline about 25 yards from the goal line. My son usually plays right back and frigging hates it.

Is this bloke available to take over an EPL club?

I think we should pay tribute to Frank Lampards tactical nouse. Facing a transfer ban he has proved himself capable of neutralising one of the rival clubs for the top 4, and getting them to pay 8mil in the process.

Sadly this is the bit where we differ. I can’t think of any performance this season that I’d describe as decent. The tactics, shape, structure and quality of much of our play is well below decent. We look a bit like an under nines team. Or as Graeme Souness summed it up - a semi pro team.

I really wish that it wasn’t that way. And we are regressing rather than progressing.

Yeah, not really sure what AG is on about with us having to beat Chelsea and United to show we’re better when we actually won matches against both of them last year. We have gotten stronger on paper since then, and they haven’t, so 4th place is the absolute minimum we should accept this season.

Dreadful performance against Watford. We showed all of our flaws and very little of our potentially good sides. It’s a bit worrying that we basically have one good performance out of five games so far this season. The defensive side is one thing, I think we need our full backs and reinforcement centrally before we start to see real improvement theere, but there is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to put more pressure on Watford offensively with the players we have. We’re right where we need to be points wise, but we need to improve fast.

Read this amazing stat this morning:
Over the course of 13 matches en route to the champions league final last year Spurs only led for 173 minutes. That’s 1270 minutes of matches. I thought they were jammy but that proves it

I’m not sure we’ve even had 1 good performance.
Newcastle was disjointed, very few shots on goal and could easily have been a 0-0
Burnley was better but we still played a lot of that game messing around in our own final 3rd as Burnley pressed us high.
We had a good 45 mins v spurs in the second half but if Kane’s shot goes in instead of hitting the post at 2-1 we lose that game.

We’ve got a run of games where we should win 8 of the next 10 or so. We urgently need to start finding some form.

Nah, we were good for the whole match against Tottenham. I think people's judgement of that game is skewed because of the ridiculous goals we gifted them, we bossed the midfield throughout the entire game and actually looked consistently threatening. Something we didn't do against Burnley, Newcastle or Watford.

But to be honest, at this point I wouldn't change the starting eleven much if anything at all. Don't think we're going to find any sort of rhythm by changing our formation and lineup every game.

I think Emery who won the Europa cup three times in a row is capable of better than this, as is this squad of players.

The best starts to the season I remember were when we we pre seasoned in Austria. Everyone would tip Arsenal to drop out of the top four and we’d start the season like the proverbial well-oiled machine and by the time the wheels fell off in Feb-March we’d already built a decent points total and had loads of momentum.

Particularly compared to that I think we’re still ridiculously unsettled. Both first choice full backs and arguably a starting or a least supporting CB are out and only now looking to slowly integrate over the next couple of months. Pépé has had no preseason with us at all. Torreria came back so late he’s not been an option. The young players are clearly going to need a lot of support and time and even if they do start well like Willock we know from experience that tends to dry up and they shouldn’t be first choice.

It’s as far away from a fairly settled team with a settled philosophy having a smooth preseason as you could get.

My prediction was that we’d be a bit ropey at points but we’d muddle through at just below par (so on course for 5th/6th I suppose) until Christmas, then after the new year when Pépé’s settled, Holding Bellerin and Tierney have had a few games and Emery decides what we’re doing and we’ve given the young players some Europa experience we’d start to motor as a team. But it’d be too late to be anywhere near the top two and we’d be fourth maybe third depending on how much Chelsea Utd and Spurs struggle. My hope was third.

What I didn’t count on was this interminable *%^@ up and getting the balance of the team and tactics SO badly wrong. You can cope with muddling along and it’s a decent platform to improve. If it all implodes and recriminations start and Xhaka keeps saying we’re scared and we keep playing out from the back we’ll have no platform to kick on in Jan. If the club as a whole (looking at Edu and Sanlehi maybe) can keep their heads we should still make top four.

It feels like the equivalent of a boxer who if he can just survive the first round could go on to win on points.

Also you know when you hear something and you go “Yeah that feels right” Vieira to take over at the end of the season?