Emery’s numbers look very bad

by .

Day two and the pain is still pretty intense.

I find the defence of the manager quite baffling, especially considering how strong the evidence of his failings has been. Underlying and data and literally what you’ve been watching all season tells a clear story. So spare the detailed unpicking of his body language or the theorising over why he said nothing in the changing room after the game.

Granit Xhaka, a man who has been front and centre for most of the experience is even a touch deluded about it all.

“I think we had a good season, if you take off the five last games in the Premier League.”

Oh my Granit, oh my. That said, he refused to answer the question as to whether we improved this season under Unai Emery. Well Granit, I can answer you, simply, no we didn’t.

I’m stealing some of Gambon’s posts that explicitly lay this out with hard numbers.

By all accounts, the above is pretty shocking. You can say what you will about Arsene Wenger, but it was clear the problem with him in his last 2-3 seasons was his drifting further and further away from the basics. We mostly blamed poor tactics, a lack of preparation, a blindness to squad needs (which Sven went a way to fixing) and a loss of fire that once drove him to greatness.

When we hired in the new person, we hired in a ‘coach.’ The point of a coach is that they should have the ability to move the club forward without spending £400m. We even had the argument last year that we couldn’t hire in someone like Allegri because he’d want NOW money. Emery was the coach. Training would be high energy, he was a prep machine and he wouldn’t allow the players to be cowards.

So aside from it being clear that performance indicators have dipped, and it being obvious that the culture of the club hasn’t been shifted in an entire year, the other item people keep on comparing to is Liverpool.

Klopp came in, moved Liverpool from 10th to 8th. A poor return they say, that was rectified with time, money and patience. Yes, but remember, those three elements are a reward for tangible progress.

Again, we are in single data point territory. Football fans are utterly terrible with stats, so let me paint a picture using someone else’s.

Just to add to the above. As the season wore on, Klopp’s Liverpool side greatly improved. His team scored 52% of its entires PL seasons goals in the last 13 games. The fans were being electrified with rock and roll football. You could clearly see that without buying players, that Klopp was impacting the players, the culture and the energy around the club.

Additionally harping back to the goals conceded issue, I find it slightly worrying that we’re expecting a coach with limited defensive pedigree to fix our defence. At Sevilla, over his three seasons in which he finished 5th, 5th and 7th… he averagely shipped 49 goals a year. He look over a defence at PSG that had conceded 19 goals, when it was handed over, it clocked up to 27, then 29 in his final year.

‘BUT WHO WOULD COME TO ARSENAL FOR £6M A YEAR’

I have to tell you Arsenal fans, this is the most middle class ‘I live in a bubble’ comment I read.

Arsenal is a powerhouse club. You can bitch about it, you can say its dead, you can say we’re not attractive… but you’d be so fucking wrong. If Liverpool can attract Jurgen Klopp to live on Merseyside with a team that was sitting in 10th, with the promise of zero net spend for 2 full seasons, then Arsenal are not going to have a problem hiring in a top manager to take us forward.

Yes, the owner didn’t go to the game. But really, what are you bitching about there? Its YOUR sentimentality you’re whining about. Stan K isn’t in the day to day of any of his clubs, and why would you want him to be? Raul and Vinai run the show.

Stan can be called many things, but uninterested seems a bit of a meek jab. He invested as much of Arsenal’s self-generated money as he could have, we are the 3rd highest net spenders in the league over 5 years and we have spent more net than Madrid over 10 years. We have a £230m wage bill compared to Spurs at £140m. We fired Arsene Wenger and his team at a cost of £17m last year. Stan signed off on Ozil at £350k a week. We built a new structure at the club at great expense, and to be fair, the structure is modern and forward thinking. We paid £2m for a head of high performance. We brought in Sven for £2m a year. We revamped the training facilities at great expense. We are not lacking money and the myth that Stan is all about profit just doesn’t stack up against any sort of inspection.

‘he should write us a cheque for players!’

Look at what is happening to Manchester City with regards to flooding the club with cash injections that are allegedly not what they seem.

Anyway, my point being is this: It’s poor leadership to look at what Emery has done in his year, and think the right move is to carry on as is.

He was hired as a coach, his coaching has taken us backwards.

The easiest and most impactful thing we can do is change the manager. Rethink what we’ve lacked and make a bold decision. We will call it the Bruce Rioja moment.

We need a true leader. Someone who will bring some swagger back to the club. We need someone who the players want to fight for. Someone players desperately want to play under because they know they will improve. Someone in the mould of you know who down the road.

We also need someone with a distinct vision of how the game should be played. Emery’s chameleon approach is non-committal. How many teams have successfully been able to implement both possession football and counter-attacking at the same time? It’d be a monumental achievement to make that happen, and we certainly couldn’t do that on a budget.

My big worry is clearing out problematic players is all well and good, but if you are replacing into a blurred vision of football, you are actually further damaging the club. Emeryball is awful to watch. It’s not the next level. But we appear to be going hard at giving a failing manager the keys to our next 3 years. That is a terrifying prospect.

Is chameleon football part of The Arsenal DNA?

I had hoped not.

I was hoping that the good bits Wenger left would remain. I want Arsenal to play the most electric brand of football on the planet. I want Arsenal to embark on a transfer policy that prioritises the best young players that boast extreme technical capabilities, combined with outrageous power and pace. Give me what Ajax and Dortmund have, but bump it up two notches.

Instead, we’ll fall back on ‘class’, which is code for ‘lack of ambition’, and we’ll kick to tough decision can down the road for next season.

It’s a brutally miserable view, but the MD of the club apparently sent out an e-mail asking for people to get some perspective on yesterday. Someone ask Petr Cech whether that happens at CFC after an appalling showing at a final? Barcelona? Madrid?

The real perspective is we’re not built for success. We have a fancy structure, but as I keep on saying, if you do not fill that with the very best people, you are in trouble.

That said, the one HUGE positive I can give you is the noise around Edu is very positive. Firstly, there’s no kingmaker aspect to this hire. Raul is hiring him in because he’s good. You don’t do great things at Corinthians, then take a job with Brazil to be told by Raul you have to sign Ever Banega. Edu also has a lot of sauce about him, the guy looks money, and he knows the DNA of Arsenal and Brazil.

… but he has to be allowed to take an axe to the substandard people at Arsenal. He has to implement a vision, set aggressive targets and hold people accountable for delivering them. We cannot continue to skip along into the footballing abyss pretending our problems are going to be solved by throwing a boatload of cash at people that don’t know how to send it.

Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments.

742 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Receding Hairline

“‘I have chosen Inter because of the club it is, because of the project’s sound basis and how ambitious it is. Because of Inter’s history.

‘I was struck by the club’s transparency and the desire to bring Inter back to where it belongs.'”

Conte after unveiling by Inter

What is our ambition??

Where is the transparency??

Let’s wait and see what Inter do in the market to match that ambition.

I suspect it won’t be 68m in spending

Luteo Guenreira

It doesn’t matter whether Emery is good enough or not. Whether it’s his own doing, whether the club didn’t make the right moves, whether the players are pony, whoever is in charge, whatever. Fact is we came short of our goal this year and the lack of additional funds will set us back. How far it sets us back remains to be seen, but due to all the circumstance involved with that it’s pretty much guaranteed he will remain only another year and the club will move on.

Ishola70

People should just relax a bit.

If Emery is really not up to this task as being portrayed coupled with his very modest transfer budget the chickens will come home to roost sooner rather than later and he will fall down.

He is only entering his second season. Under Wenger and his last decade, a whole decade, people knew that the club were just kicking the same water over and over again that led to regression in his last few years.

Luteo Guenreira

Well we lost half of our starting back four in the first couple months, is there a stat for that

Emiratesstroller

Fur her to those who want to see Allegri take over at Arsenal take a look at his
transfer budget in last 4 years.

2015/16 £136.53 Million
2016/17 £176.24 Million
2017/18 £144.36 Million
2018/19 £235.35 Million
———————————–
£692.48 Million

Juventus have probably managed their departure list a lot better than we have
when you see players like Sanchez, Wilshire, Ramsey and Welbeck leaving
for zippo.

No other club in EPL has been as mismanaged as we have in recent years and
that is down to Kroenke, Board of Directors, Gazidis and Wenger.

Receding Hairline

“If you improve the defensive spine, you should probably expect to see an improvement in results?” Yes you would and we got some of those performances. We were very good at home against Spurs and Liverpool. We played very well at home against Chelsea. Played very well against Napoli. Many good games, many bad ones and some indifferent ones. The story of a transitional season. Of course you also have to take into account – The alarming decline of Monreal – Kos inconsistencies – The long term injuries to Holding and Bellerin – Torrira only gave us half a good… Read more »

Daz

Emery has said arsenal are the first club where he has not felt scared of losing his job based on performance, enough said the club is a joke, the kroenke’s are a joke we dont need to analyse any further. Madrid, barca, bayern, utd, city, chelsea etc etc demand results arsenal don’t, nothing else matters budgets don’t matter tactics don’t matter the coach doesn’t matter. The owner doesn’t give a fuck about arsenal no pressure on the board no pressure on the coaching staff no pressure on the players. And people talk about how attractive the club is to managers/players… Read more »

Micheal

Spot on Stroller.

Receding Hairline

Speaking of performances, ones against the top six has also improved (which is what i guess led to all the optimism for the cup final)

We picked up 12/24 points scoring 16 goals and conceding 19 .

Last season it was 6/24 points with a goal difference of -10

These are also stats with which one can rate performance, xG is not the only valid statistic

Cesc Appeal

Wonder if we turn to Joachim Andersen instead of Umtiti or Upamecano? Rumours we were in Italy scouting him and teammate Praet.

Would be going young to try for Andersen and Saliba.

Spurs apparently sniffing around Andersen as well.

jwl

Questioning the utility of algorithms that didn’t even exist a decade ago is not close to being a flat earther, Pedro. ———– As Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, Turing Award winner, and Google VP pointed out …. “We need to remember that [AI systems] are made out of software. And we don’t know how to write perfect software … the consequence is that however much we might benefit from these devices …, they may not work exactly the way they were intended to work or the way we expect them to. And the more we rely on [AI… Read more »

Graham62

Pedro

Can’t you dedicate at least one day a week to “positive memories”?

What about May 3rd and May 8th 1971?

The double week.

R.S.P.C.Arsenal

When you look at the stats es put up on transfers …

Man what have we got back in outgoings!

It’s criminal .

Time Wenger had his guard taken down n truth be told about him.

TR7

10 matches in to the season and it was evident Emery was not the right guy to take us forward. It is sad that Stan will as usual do nothing and let another season go waste.

Valentin

The fact that some of the KPIs were not in the public domain year ago does not mean that they did not exist before. Nowadays anybody with a smart phone can get financial analysis data that 20 years ago were only available to brokers and large financial institutions. The reason why every footballers now wear a GPS is because it is more precise, but before every good managers had a idea of how much his players had run during a game. The same with the xG, they just put a real objective number on something that every manager instinctively was… Read more »

Marko

CA simply have to try for one of Upamecano or Konate. Not only are they quality now but their respective ceilings are high and you could sell on eventually for a big fee

TR7

Emery has failed on all fronts :

1. Worse defense than last season
2. No semblance of fluency in attack
3. Lack of mental strength still remains a big problem
4. No style or pattern of play
5. Lack of ability to nurture and promote young talents
6. Torreira and Guen looked impressive early on but seem to have regressed under Emery
7. Poor squad selection
8. Doesn’t look like he has won over the players, let alone the fans

Marko

TR7 they ought to just hire you to hire the next Arsenal manager. My god you had him sussed after 10 games? So after 8 wins and two defeats you just knew? Fair play lad

Big Andy

Pedro: the problem at Arsenal is simple. It’s called Stan Kroenke. With no ambition at the very top it doesn’t matter who the coach or chief executive is. The only way to get him out is with a boycott of the club by fans.

I hope the cunts are hurting as much as us fans are hurting watching the cunt spud fans in Madrid.

Marko

The Eagles
owner Jeffrey Lurie: “I did look into buying other sports teams when I owned the Eagles, and I regret maybe one of them. There was probably an opportunity to be a significant owner of Arsenal

Such a shame. He’s done a brilliant job with the eagles

@Big Andy

I totally agree. Emery is a nice guy but not the one to take us forward. But whoever we get will be fucking hamstrung by having Mr Scrooge as the owner.

Paul Kelly

Receding hairline…just in case you missed it .. Lennon only just joined Celtic…it was Rodgers team.
Also Neil Lennon did not come close to winning the premier League.
I think we will be lucky to finish above Leicester next season

TR7

Marko

A fair few here did suss Emery out very early in to the season, I wasn’t the only one. I am hopeful you will also come around to the idea Emery is sub-standard.

Receding Hairline

“I think we will be lucky to finish above Leicester next season”

On account of Rodgers being a better manager than Emery??

Chris

TR7

Judging a manager after 10 games is incredibly harsh unless he has lost all or most of them. Emery didn’t.

You just appear like another ‘captain hindsight’.

Un na naai

Can’t you dedicate at least one day a week to “positive memories”?What about May 3rd and May 8th 1971?The double week.

Bamford, Joe, hairline and FL might actually learn some arsenal history beyond 2010 then.

azed

Pedro I asked a question and you’ve not answered… Pochettino’s has beat xG since his time at Spurs and Southampton, why is that? How come you praise Pochettino but have never questioned his xG numbers? A quote from statsbomb The evidence we have suggests Pochettino’s Spurs have a habit of beating the metrics, so there may be something here. What has never been clear, though, is whether Tottenham’s overperformance in past years has been down to tactical choices or simply the combination of above average finishers (particularly Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, while Dele Alli has had good finishing runs… Read more »

Paul Kelly

Yes… Rodgers better than Emery.
Proven premiership credentials.
Astute in the transfer market.
Kicks ass

Un na naai

Paul Kelly

You from saaarf London? I know a Paul Kelly from South West. Used to dj at an Irish pub there on Sunday evenings.

Paul Kelly

Not me mate

englandsbest

Looking to the future, ‘get rid of’ must be our priority this summer. Not simply because the departees are not up to scratch, but also a reduced wage bill will provide cash for decent arrivals. We’d save £17m pa on Ozil alone. Moving on to ‘who do we get’, defenders come first to mind (and I don’t dispute that) but the signing I hope for most of all is a proper winger – better still, two of them – who can take a defender on the outside, and cross the ball impeccably. I don’t dig full-backs who think they are… Read more »

Paul Kelly

Rodgers signed Couthinho and Firmino for sweeties

Marko

So TR7 if you can definitively judge a manager after 10 games surely you should be able to do some guesswork on a manager before even one game. So who are you thinking for next Arsenal manager?

Un na naai

Paul

Ok. I’m sure it’s a perfectly common name
That Paul Kelly was a tosser anyway. Used to try and bully teenagers. Made out he was Irish even though he was as English as fried bread. Thought he was a right hard man

Un na naai

Marko

Arteta or allegri
How many times??

azed

From statbomb That might get at Arsenal’s biggest problem right now. All the decisions taken at the club, since well before anyone currently involved arrived, have been geared towards Wenger’s methods. Emery is trying to introduce some new ideas to a squad accustomed to doing things a certain way. There are signs that his ideas are taking hold, even if it has not led to a substantial performance improvement, but it still feels too early to judge whether this is the correct course. Emery is turning a cruise ship around, and it will take time, but we can at least… Read more »

azed

Ok, so it seems like Arsenal haven’t played substantially better this season than last. But, you’re probably saying, this is the first season of a radical break from how things have been done at the club for the past two decades. It’s not about playing well right now, but building something that can be successful in the long term. So let’s take a look at the stylistic changes Emery is implementing. “Pressing” was something of a buzzword when Emery was appointed in the summer. Perhaps this was because of the success that fellow Premier League managers Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp… Read more »

Spanishdave

I wonder if Emery lost the players towards the end of the season as the last 8 games our performance became relegation level.
His constant fiddling with formations certainly had the players confused, they lost the pressing, they had no confidence in forward passing, very nervous on the ball, it certainly went wrong.
He has to go there’s no logic in wasting yet another year.

Paul Kelly

Un na naai

Thanks for the nod…I better change my name!

Un na naai

Azed

Hahaha. So they learned how to beat Chelsea n spurs then conveniently forgot how to win when the big guns like wolves and Brighton rolled out

What a turnip

Dissenter

CC You were directing your angst at the wrong individual. There was nothing wrong about the email Vinai sent. The email is not what was damning because there is NOTHING that the email could have stated that will soothe anyone. In fact I credit them for having the balls to send something. I would have just said…don’t sent anything. Speak with your actions. THE DAMNING THING IS KROENKE’S ABSENCE AND HIS SILENCE. Save your gunpowder or adjust the sights of your musket Let Vinai and Raul be. It is their first summer window. Let us judge them by what they… Read more »

Dissenter

Who cares what John Henry said. He too puffed the same corporate BS, powder puffery marketing crap.

It is what John Henry has done that’s speaking for him.
Action speaks louder that a million emails.

James.wood

I will run wth Brendan Rodgers at least you can understand him.
Certainly will be better than watching Emery embarrassing himself
On the line directing traffic.

azed

Anyone who has an idea of stats know the data doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the data is telling the truth.

xG and xGA are broad metrics that don’t tell the whole story.

Liverpools xGa dropped with the signing of VVD.
There’s a difference with City’s xGA with and without Fernadinho(I wonder why Arteta hasn’t fixed this since according to Pedro, quality of players don’t matter).

James.wood

And looking like he knows what he’s doing.???

Goonah

——Auba Laca Pepe————
–Ndombele Rabiot Torreira–
Chilwell Sok Konate Meunier
————-Leno——————–

Fixed it. Sorted. Just sell a few deadweights.
Me and the tea lady would romp the league.
Get Arteta in and we win the CL too.

How hard can it be?

COYG

TR7

Marko

Jardim and Naggelsmman are certainly much better than Emery.

azed

“So they learned how to beat Chelsea n spurs then conveniently forgot how to win when the big guns like wolves and Brighton rolled out” Wolves rank 3 in the mini 6 league behind City and Pool…. We might as well call Pochettino a terrible manager right? The difference between a good player and a great one is consistency. So we might say its easier to get the players focused for big games vs the small ones. This is why the Energy levels are different when we played Spurs vs when we played Brighton. We have players that are not… Read more »

Goonah

It would actually be fun to see what happened if Emery was paid of his 6M£ and
Arteta got the gig. 0M£ and no transfers ofcourse. Same as Klopp.
Arteta only has to improve 1% to get 4th.
Kroenke pockets another 30M£.

Everyone is happy it seems?

Emiratesstroller

TR7

Our defence is in decline, because
a] We have three players in their 32-35 age group who are not good enough to
play in EPL.
b]We have Mustafi and Kolasinac who are headless chickens.
c] We have Holding and Bellerin out with long term injuries.
d] We have got Maitland-Niles who has not been educated how to defend properly.

So our defensive resources in second half of season have not been fit for purpose.

Danny M.O

Judging by the internal email going around i think they are disregarding this year as transitional.

There is no inquest or anything. Just blaming transition and stating we will go again with another 40m by the looks of it.

Lets face it, we are a mediocre uefa cup team based off stans ambition. It serves us right to finish where we are considering how much money is being spent by everyone else.

azed

“Zardim and Naggelsmman are certainly much better than Emery.”

TR7

If Jardim is so good, why was Monaco almost relegated? Its not like this was his first season in French league. Its not like Jardim wasn’t the one who constructed that team so how did a supposed good manager end up in a relegation fight in Ligue un?

Marko

How so TR7?

Champagne Charlie

Dissenter

You praise Vinai for sending an internal email calling for ‘togetherness’ and ‘knowing’ they had the right people at the club? Of course you do.

Then you dismiss John Henry’s public sentiments outlining the ambitious nature of Liverpool, who he says would still feel hollow despite a CL win as they want the PL? Again, utterly unsurprising.

Odd cat you are sometimes.

Marko

I do actually like those managers and I wanted Jardim originally to replace Wenger. Given the state of the squad and what happened last summer I’m not sure there would have been much of a difference. They still would have been working with a lop sided weak mentally declining squad. Certainly in terms of Nagelsmann I don’t see him making our defenders smarter or making Ozil any less of a useless cunt

Paul Kelly

I think Spanish Dave has nailed it.

Emery has lost the players.

Wenger ( amazingly) never lost the players.

He is history I’m afraid.

azed

“Wenger’s issue with the same squad that he could win the small games but not against big 6?” Pedro Until Emery lost half of his starting back 4, Emery was dealing with the small teams. Emery is not known to play with a back 3 and he didn’t start with a back 3 but situation forced his hand and he had to adapt. AMN and Kolasinac cannot play in a back 4 but they were our fullbacks for half the season. That doesn’t come up in the xG metrics. You say Emery hasn’t improved anything, but the stats tell a… Read more »

TR7

Azed

Dortmund were on the brink of relegation too under Klopp, so what ? Jardim has been recalled by Monaco, suggests they value his work. Zardim has managed to get his teams to play a defined brand of football, he has a history of nurturing young players and getting them to perform at a good level and unlike Conte and Mancini, he doesn’t throw tantrums for more transfer fund. One blip in a decade old career doesn’t make someone a bad manager.

James.wood

I eluded to Auba and Laca showing some form of dissent when they where
Subbed by Emery so perhaps he has lost their backing.
He certainly fell out with Ramsey so who knows.

He comes over as a bit erratic players have to be man managed and perhaps with his broken English ,communication and understanding to the players is proving difficult.
I can see Auba Leaving.?

azed

“Jardim has been recalled by Monaco, suggests they value his work. ” You can say the same thing for Emery. Until he gets fired, you can say the hierarchy values his work and know that it would take a while to be competitive. Arsenal should be mildly worried about the potential of slipping into mid-table because they have downside risk coming from the current squad construction, the reliance on older players, and the limited amount of assets that can be sold at close to top value. A good number of Arsenal’s main contributors are late peak-age or already at the… Read more »

azed

TR 7

Like Emirates Stroller has said earlier, this are the centre defenders Emery met at the club
Koscienly 33 years old and just came back from an achilles injury. He’s a player that relied on pace rather than positioning.
Nacho Monreal 33 years old
Rob Holding 23 years old
Skrodan Mustafi 26 years old
Konstans Mavropanos 20 years old.

Is there any in this list that would be interesting to any of our rivals(Holding aside)?

Receding Hairline

I’m not getting pulled into the Jardim argument.. Had enough of that to last me a lifetime. Let him clear the mess at Monaco first,not come here to reap the rewards of another’s work.

gambon

Interestingly, for the people that think xG and performance metrics are nonsense – there was a great piece in one if the newspapers the other day about Liverpool’s head of analysis. He’s a real stats nerd. He determined that Dortmund in 2014/15 we’re actually the second best team in Germany by performance and they had finished 7th due to incredible bad luck. So despite everyone being wary of Klopp, this understanding of performance metrics got them one of the world’s best managers. A lot of people on here would have been begging for Dieter Hecking of Wolfsburg who finished second.… Read more »

Receding Hairline

As for Nagglesman, he just moved up a level, RB recruit well, let’s see if he betters the work of his predecessor.

Or will a 5th place finish for Leipzig next season be seen as an improvement because their manager has a clear style of play? Doubt it

azed

Not one soul has said Emery is the long term solution for the club. What I, Dissenter and Receding are saying is rather than spend money paying off Emery and his crew, use that money to bring in young talent.

When Emery’s contract is up, a Jardim or Naggelsmman can be brought in and they would have a base to build from.

Champagne Charlie

“Let him clear the mess at Monaco first,not come here to reap the rewards of another’s work.“

Reap the rewards of who’s work?

bennydevito

Ebening Grovers, Sorry Pedro but like I said on Twitter; the day they start handing out titles and trophies based on XG will be the day I’ll start caring about it. And during our 22 game unbeaten run didn’t our XG show we should have been losing and mid table? XG doesn’t take into account unmeasurables like luck, injuries, age and player decline, clinical or lack of clinical finishing in terms if being able to take that 1 chance out of 10 or that 1 chance out of 1 when we’ve been completely outplayed, bad refereeing decisions and all sorts… Read more »

Goonah

How does Artetas xG and peformance metrics hold up to other coaches?

Does he get a base Pep level or how does it work?

Receding Hairline

Sarabia has a buy out clause of 17m, apparently Madrid are interested, wouldn’t have been a bad option for us

United favorites for Rabiot

Liverpool considering Pepe

Inter going in hard for Barrella …conte already moving

azed

“He determined that Dortmund in 2014/15 we’re actually the second best team in Germany by performance and they had finished 7th due to incredible bad luck.”

25 year old Sokratis was a back up in that team. In 2019, 30 year old Sokratis is the best centre defender we have.
xG doesn’t measure talent level so it tells one part of the story.

Marko

Interestingly, for the people that think xG and performance metrics are nonsense

I don’t dismiss it I just don’t think it’s the only indicator of progress or decline.

Receding Hairline

Charles Cech and Sokratis believe a lot of work was put in this season behind the scenes.. Seeing as they both play for Arsenal and you don’t I will take their word for it thanks.

If you think Emery sat on his hands for 12 months it’s your prerogative…. You jump on every Emery compliment like a personal insult to you.

Dissenter

CC I think you missed the part where I stated that action speaks louder than words. John Henry’s actions are what has gootne Liverpool to where they are, not some tweets or emails. Like when he gave Arsenal the middle finger for the 40,000,001 offer for Suarez. Actions speaks louder that words, is that so had for you to get. I will wait to see what Raul and Vinai do or fail to do before I start jumping at some silly email. You tend to have limited visual field when these things happen Kroenke should have been the one talking… Read more »

TR7

‘Is there any in this list that would be interesting to any of our rivals(Holding aside)?’

Again conflating squad issues with assessment of Emery. Any manager would look decent with a back 4 of Kompany,VVD, Marcelo and Alba but that’s not the point here. The question that you need to ask yourself is whether Emery was able to build an organized defense ? Did he improve positional awareness of our defenders ? Was he able to.instill some discipline in to our back 4 ? What has been his value add as a manager ?

Valentin

There are different types of billionaire owner of football club. Some are in it for fun and personal prestige: Abramovitch. Some are in it as proxy for a country: ManCity. Some are in it as investment. For some it is a short term investment where they hope to reap the benefit after a few years of ownership: Liverpool. For others, it is a long term investment where the asset will appreciate itself in 15 years: Arsenal. Some fans have lost all sense of reality if they think that any long term investor will pour money into his/her club to jump-start… Read more »

Champagne Charlie

Benny You realise you can be 11 points closer to 4th by virtue of the 4th place side being worse than the previous season right? It doesn’t explain progression on our part. Points/wins are the result of performance, so you measure performance (as Gambon has detailed) to determine if what you’re witnessing is par for the course, or if you’re overachieving/underachieving relative to the performance you’re putting in. As such it’s terribly simplistic to say ‘we were 7 points better….progress’. I could just as easy write those 7 points off down to Auba being here a full season, which is… Read more »

TR7

Receding

‘Charles Cech and Sokratis believe a lot of work was put in this season behind the scenes.. Seeing as they both play for Arsenal and you don’t I will take their word for it thanks.’

We had players saying similar things about Wenger even in his disastrous last season. I wouldn’t read too much in to what Papa and Cech have to say about Emery.

Marko

https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/2018-19-tactical-review-bayern-munich-kovac-dortmund-favre-rb-leipzig-nagelsmann-4906

Interesting to see Nagelsmann and Hoffenheim were in the top 4 for teams that used the most formations. The other three were two relegated teams and one who fought relegation.

Kwame

The fortunes of a football club are as good as the ambition(s) of the owner(s). We are where we are today because our God damned capitalist American owner’s interest in the club is not in synch with that of the fans. We all know what Emery’s fate would have been if he was the coach for Barca, RM, Bayern, Chelsea, Manure. The owners of these clubs respect their fans. They know that whatever decisions they make must as much as possible inure to the interest of all stakeholders of their respective clubs. The fight to bring our dear club back… Read more »

Dissenter

Valentin “Anything else is a pipe dream. Unless Spurs collapse under their debt, ManCity ban from the Champion’s league and Qatar got bored with football,Anything else is a pipe dream. Arsenal is unlikely to win the premiership in the next 2~3 years. That’s true under any manager we would have gotten. Even Pep wouldn’t win the league with out squad if the owners don’t invest heavily. Revise that statement to state that “Arsenal is unlikely to win the premiership in the next TEN years.” Our model is only good for midtable mediocrity. The fans will have to vote with their… Read more »

jwl

Flaws of xG, taken from vikigenius on Reddit – 1) xG does not take into account the previous record for a single player. In a given position in a given situation, Danny Welbeck has the same xG to score as Cristiano Ronaldo. Of course this will help when comparing players and we can conclude that Ronaldo is a better finisher. But if we use it to argue that Arsenal had the same chance to score as Real Madrid, then it becomes false, because it doesn’t take into account that Ronaldo is the better finisher. 2) The xG system typically has… Read more »

Champagne Charlie

“If you think Emery sat on his hands for 12 months it’s your prerogative…. You jump on every Emery compliment like a personal insult to you.“ No I happen to disagree with some things that are said and I offer a counter to them. That’s how it works, not your ‘won’t change my mind in a million years’ bollocks. I’m not suggesting Emery has sat on his hands, I’m suggesting the work he’s put in hasn’t borne any fruit – hence him not being up to task. I’ve nothing against Emery, he seems a decent bloke, but he’s not affecting… Read more »

azed

“The question that you need to ask yourself is whether Emery was able to build an organized defense ? Did he improve positional awareness of our defenders ? ” Before Holding and Bellerin’s injuries, the defence was looking way better. Everyone acknowledged that. It would be fool hardy to expect improvements from Koscienly and Monreal as they winding up their careers. Important to note that the Xhaka and Torriera partnership was improving until Torriera ran out of gas. “The 23-year-old told Sky Sports: “The main difference is how we’re defending when we’re attacking. “When we’re up the other end of… Read more »

Ishola70

I only read about the main premise of xG to see that it is flawed like all stats that try to be too clever and deep. They mark regarding shots from central areas and wider areas. The problem with this is that just marking down like this doesn’t take into consideration the players involved and their characteristics and traits. A keeper may be better or worse in one area central or nearer to his posts. A player missing from a central position is not necessarily failing in comparison to a player putting a shot wide from a wider position. The… Read more »

Valentin

@Dissenter,

That’s where you are wrong. With a carefully planned approach Arsenal can be a Premiership contender within 5 years.
ManCity can only buy 25 players for their squad. That leaves a lot of very good players to purchase.

The difference is that ManCity can buy an entire squad in one or two transfer window. Arsenal can’t.

Look at Liverpool, incremental progress for a few years, then two big purchases per season for two year (past and next).

Those initial purchases don’t even need to be expensive, they just need to be smart and fitting the team.

Marko

I did read somewhere that there was people behind the scenes that weren’t happy with the amount of progress made compared to Wenger so they do have some worries about Emery in his first season. But they’re not worried enough to bip him after one season. Obviously aware that more work needs to be done I guess

Dissenter

CC You’re the freaking drama queen looking for strength in an email that was sent to soothe distressed fans at the club. You’ weren’t talking about “delivering” yesterday, just some silly email that was sent. I’m the one who was urging restraint to see what will actually get done. Had you lamented about the absence or silence of Kroenke, you may have had a pint. Instead you got bogged down in the weeds as usual. Reminds me of the times you muzzled yourself from speaking out against Wenger when he was going the very thing you’re lambasting. Remember the “next… Read more »

Receding Hairline

TR7 I should ignore papa and cech, ignore my own eyes and take your word for it that ten games in it was clear Emery will fail?

No thanks dude

TR7

Azed

‘“We seem a bit more organised and a bit more together at the back.”

We have conceded 49 goals this season and haven’t had a single clean sheet away to any team which wasn’t a man down. We have suffered the heaviest defeat in a cup final ever. Proof of the pudding is in the eating. Media bites mean nothing really if the on field performance don’t back the assertion made. We have been anything but organized at the back.

Valentin

@jwl,

An xG is a statistical chance of scoring based on the opportunity presented during the game. It is a team statistic, not a single player one.

If you want to compare between two players, you need to compare their conversion rate and their average number of shot taken per 90 minutes . I’ll give you that even that conversion rate metric could be improved in that it does not give you the full picture, because that does not make the distinction between shot outside the box, inside the box, 1v1, speculative shot, penalty, free-kick.

Receding Hairline

Apparently the sky sports poll ended with 11 players being voted out.

So majority of the voters believe as much as 11 first team players need to go, sounds like the coach is indeed our problem

Valentin

@RH,

Where people allowed to vote the manager out as well?

Nobody said that the team was perfect and could not be improved. The main question is Emery the man to make the necessary improvement?

I am willing to bet that if you were to take a poll among Arsenal fans, a clear majority would say no.

Goonah

RH

If Emery was on the poll he would also be out