Dissecting Emery's Arsenal

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Wengerball continues it seems!

Alright seriously, I'll start with the postives...

1.No more 70 minute predictable subs.
2. Um ...... players working harder?? (prolly the new coach effect)

TBH, I'm not impressed with the way our new coach has started and the fact that we seem to have the same failings makes me think he just hasn't done his homework on this team or on this league properly.

His high defensive lines , poor starting lineups and wingbacks abandoning their positions with relish makes me wonder if we will be able to compete with the big boys at all this season.

Yes the football has been attractive, but we could have played this under AW ........ I'm just struggling to stay positve after what I've seen in these last 3 games. Someone give me something

[Master Splinter]

Wengerball ended in 2008.

[Özim]

For me there's positives and negatives.

Positives, I like to see us make subs earlier to change things, these definitely making a difference and it's good to see he does try to change things. Think the pressing game could be good, needs the players to get us to it but longer term it should be good.

Negatives, the lineups, picking the same team 3 matches running when we lost the 1st too (other than Ozil who he says was injured), really? Not liking that at all, if players don't perform you change things, for a start Xhaka should never have played in a million years, he's been awful, secondly Lacazette should have played. Also I'll go back to the keeping situation, paying 20+ million for a keeper and not playing him is a waste, we should have just spent the money elsewhere on another outfiled player and just stuck to the keepers we have, we need more investment in the outfield areas.

The defence was clueless, playing a high line with centre backs with no pace is ridiculous, full backs always attacking and getting caught out is also not great, no signs of playing as a unit at mo, but it's early on.

[Letters]

The defence was clueless, playing a high line with centre backs with no pace is ridiculous, full backs always attacking and getting caught out is also not great, no signs of playing as a unit at mo, but it's early on.

I’m not a fan of Shearer but his analysis on MoTD was spot on.
Both full backs pushing up at the same time leaves us horribly exposed, West Ham caught us time after time and a better team would have punished us.
Early days and we have to give Emery time but some worrying signs.

[I am invisible]

For me there's positives and negatives.

Positives, I like to see us make subs earlier to change things, these definitely making a difference and it's good to see he does try to change things....

...Negatives, the lineups, picking the same team 3 matches running when we lost the 1st too (other than Ozil who he says was injured), really? Not liking that at all, if players don't perform you change things...

Your first positive there should give you a bit of hope for your main negative - he obviously sees who is performing and who isn’t, and he isn’t afraid to hook big names at any moment during a game.

I think we need to have a little appreciation for the balancing act he has on hands at the moment in terms of man-management - as much as probably wants to make certain changes, I think he knows that, if he comes in and immediately starts swinging his dick around, he’s going to lose the dressing room. We’ve already seen stories being leaked to the press (most likely from Ramsey’s agent) about how the whole dressing room was “shocked” at Ramsey being dropped for the Chelsea game, so that hints at what he’s up against. As I said in the match thread, he may be giving certain players enough rope to hang themselves in these early games, so he can drive through the changes he wants without argument when he’s settled on his best XI?

[Globalgunner]

All the same I'm really worried about the mentality in this club and team. It seems there is a feckless attitude maybe a remnant of the Wenger years when it seemed that win, lose or draw, everyone of the players and staff went home happy.
I was shocked at the Wolves performance against City with players no one would want at Arsenal and a manager l have never heard of. They were fearless Titans while we against them were totally awestruck.
I hope Bould isn't just there as window dressing or an insurance fallback. I don't see him Integrated into the Emery team. He should have been chomping at the bit to throw off the shackles and unleash he'll now. His non appearances on the bench seems to me like we have skipped on adding something that was missing from this team.

[Coney]

Emery needs to change the style of play that the players are used to. He also needs to learn the PL game and how his ideas fit into it - he will also need to adapt his initial ideas in the light of experience. Some things will work, some won't. I am expecting a few iffy games here and there.

Three games is not enough to judge him on. He tried pressing with the fullbacks and got found out. If he learns from that and changes some of the tactics to cover it, that is perfectly fine and a good sign.

I think anyone saying he is no good at this stage is being very premature. He might be crap he might be very clever and just what we need. But 2 games against established top sides and one trying out a tactic with the fullbacks is not enough to judge him on.

Some impatient people might expect a quick improvement over Wenger (think about that - look at how high we were under Wenger even in his worst years and be grateful) but nothing is going to happen overnight.

I would rather we built up over a season and then bought some more players where needed than have a great couple of months of superficial success followed by a crash and burn.

I think we need to wait till later in the year - beginning of December before we start to make serious judgements.

[Power n Glory]

All the same I'm really worried about the mentality in this club and team. It seems there is a feckless attitude maybe a remnant of the Wenger years when it seemed that win, lose or draw, everyone of the players and staff went home happy.
I was shocked at the Wolves performance against City with players no one would want at Arsenal and a manager l have never heard of. They were fearless Titans while we against them were totally awestruck.
I hope Bould isn't just there as window dressing or an insurance fallback. I don't see him Integrated into the Emery team. He should have been chomping at the bit to throw off the shackles and unleash he'll now. His non appearances on the bench seems to me like we have skipped on adding something that was missing from this team.

Let's be fair, Wolves are a newly promoted team but that wasn't Nuno's first game in charge of Wolves. They won the Championship last year and we're seeing a well drilled team with players that know the coach and their roles well.

The West Ham performance worries me the most. We didn't control the game with possession despite Emery saying that was the intention before kick off. Our pressing game looks no different to what I've seen from previous Arsenal teams. The CB's had no protection from the midfield yesterday. Whatever we've been working on in training with our midfield and defence looks nonexistent.

We should have lost that game. If not for Cech, we'd have lost. On the plus side, good to see Monreal back and despite some defensive blunders, Bellerin set up two goals. Lacazette should be starting games by now as well. We'll see what sort of sort of shape we're in for the next game but I'm concerned by what I saw yesterday. We have the players to dominate West Ham. Pellegrini knows him well from their days in La Liga and that's the only bail I'll shoot Emery for this performance. Key changes needed for the next game or if he's ballsy enough to stick to the same squad, their needs to be night and day between this recent performance.

[Coney]

Let's be fair, Wolves are a newly promoted team but that wasn't Nuno's first game in charge of Wolves. They won the Championship last year and we're seeing a well drilled team with players that know the coach and their roles well.

The West Ham performance worries me the most. We didn't control the game with possession despite Emery saying that was the intention before kick off. Our pressing game looks no different to what I've seen from previous Arsenal teams. The CB's had no protection from the midfield yesterday. Whatever we've been working on in training with our midfield and defence looks nonexistent.

We should have lost that game. If not for Cech, we'd have lost. On the plus side, good to see Monreal back and despite some defensive blunders, Bellerin set up two goals. Lacazette should be starting games by now as well. We'll see what sort of sort of shape we're in for the next game but I'm concerned by what I saw yesterday. We have the players to dominate West Ham. Pellegrini knows him well from their days in La Liga and that's the only bail I'll shoot Emery for this performance. Key changes needed for the next game or if he's ballsy enough to stick to the same squad, their needs to be night and day between this recent performance.

Yes - a team just promoted having won the Championship starts with a winning mentality. A number of promoted teams have done well for the first part of the season and seem to punch above their weight. But after a couple of months, once the other teams have studied their PL tactics, the usually get found out (with the occasional exception!)

Not overly worried about the WH result atm. Ask me again after another 6 or 7 games and I might change my mind though. It is a question of whether Emery learns and adapts as the season progresses. I do not expect a new manager from outside the PL to turn things around in the first few games.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

I've never been a huge fan of the school of thought that says the manager should be completely divorced from the signings made by a club. What we are seeing with us is partly why. It looks like Guendouzi is the only signing Emery had anything to do with or even cares much for. I'm not sure signing a keeper for 20 million and seeing him watch games from the bench whilst pleading poverty and having other glaring holes in the squad is exactly the type of joined up thinking I was hoping to see. I give Emery a pass on that as that is actually not his fault.

I cannot for the life of me fathom why if Emery is such a believer in the 4231 system he has not started Torreira yet. The system and his previous way of deploying it has pretty much relied on at least one player of Torreira's ilk being in the 2.

Wenger's preference for Xhaka and aversion to Laca seems to be equally present in Emery which is a worry, though at least Emery will change it mid game early doors. On that point though, I think changes can be made too early and I thought Iwobi deserved a little more time to affect the game yesterday. If you win the game, people take that as proof the decision was good, but we don't actually know what would have happened if Iwobi stayed on.

We were so exposed on the counter attack against West Ham it almost completely balanced out the dropped points at Chelsea. If we want to play such a high line and have such inadequate awkward defenders I think he really should consider a 3/5 man back line and drop Mavropranos in there. Mav will ebenefit the team, with his height, athleticism and speed and Monreal and Sokratis can help him through the games with their experience.


Still desperately disappointed about our lack of authority and control in midfield too....and I really think we may as well have kept Santi. I know he and Kos are getting on but the pair of them would make a big difference to this team even at 32/33.