Halfway through the season, the honeymoon period for Unai Emery at Arsenal is well and truly over.
Following Arsenal’s dismal 1 – 0 away defeat to West Ham on Saturday, the scrutiny on Unai Emery is intensifying.
In many ways, it is typical Arsenal fan behaviour to go into meltdown after a few poor results. However, Arsenal fans are not wrong to be concerned.
Arsenal play Chelsea next weekend and if they lose, they will be nine points behind them. Such a gap would make a top four finish not impossible, but incredibly difficult.
On paper, Emery isn’t underperforming. Arsenal are the 5th or 6th best team in the leaugue and unless they overperform, they will finish 5th or 6th.
The problem with Emery is that Arsenal fans do not understand the choices he makes. Arsenal’s lack of creativity against West Ham highlighted the need for one particular player – Mesut Ozil.
Mesut Ozil continues to be left out of the squad by Emery for reasons nobody is privy to. On top of that, the involvement of Aaron Ramsey is questionable considering he is now all but a Juventus player.
Emery is certainly a more conservative manager than Arsenal fans are used to. Injuries to his inherited, imbalanced squad have undoubtedly played a role, but against the Hammers they were unambitious. If they’re not going to defend well, they could at least endeavour to get the maximum out of Aubameyang and Lacazette.
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In a statement that no one could have seen being made at the start of the season, Arsenal fans could well be looking enviously at interim Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Solskjaer has quickly lifted the Manchester United results, performances and overall mood. The likes of Gary Neville put this down to the fact that Solskjaer understands the “Man UTD Way”.
Over the Summer, Arsenal had the opportunity to do something similar with Mikel Arteta. A former player who understands the club and the fans, the thought of Arteta had Arsenal fans dreaming.
Instead, Arsenal chose the safe option of Unai Emery, and the new coach’s philosophy is a reflection of that.
Whether he’s conservative, pragmatic, or simply doing the best he can with an imbalanced squad, it’s not the Arsenal way. With each perplexing team selection, each tepid performance and each poor result, the Arsenal fans grow more anxious.
Arsenal isn’t a legacy club anymore – no team is. The window for success is tiny compared to what it used to be. The Arsenal fans will not take long to turn against Emery if his results or his football don’t improve.
