The Unai Emery Mirage

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We won.

We’re 3rd, 1 point behind Manchester City.

This should be a joyous occasion, but it’s not.

The table is a liar, she did it to us last season and she’s doing it to us again. We’re not very good, but we’re falling up the stairs. The ‘on-paper’ monkeys can point to ‘the only reality that matters is points’, but as a casual reminder, this is what happened last season.

You cannot continue to ignore what your eyes see week to week.

Unai Emery cannot find a performance. He cannot find a balanced starting 11. His in-game decisions lead me to believe he doesn’t actually see what we’re all seeing.

Winning ugly is not a sustainable strategy for a club that can’t defend or create chances.

Bournemouth are a terrible side. Their position in the league is also very kind to their reality. They don’t press, they don’t create meaningful chances and they leak shots. Rounding up, they’ve conceded about 17 shots a game this season. They are relegation fodder unless Eddie finds some magic. Perfect opposition for us.

The first half saw exactly what we all expected. A bad team struggling to find confidence away at a big club. They didn’t press, they looked nervous and they offered us up oceans of space to enact whatever the Emery vision supposedly is.

We offered up very little. Arsenal were comfortable, some fans celebrated that as a positive, but if we’re honest, Forest would have given us more of a game. We managed 2 shots on target in the first half, one was from a setpiece. There was no magic in our attack, we played like there was no real plan, and there was a real lack of energy in the middle of the park.

At the half time mark, I kind of hoped the manager would remember the Villa game and react, but he didn’t. We stuck with the same players, we created very little, but we allowed Bournemouth to get a foot in the game. They were bad in the final third, but they certainly created dangerous moments.

So what did Emery do? He subbed off Nicolas Pepe on 60 minutes. I understand that his performance wasn’t up to much, but the lack of attempts on their goal wasn’t really in his responsibility domain. The decision was a stinging rebuke, and really, not smart management. He’s our most expensive signing, he was playing against duffers, he should have been given the minutes to play his way back into the match.

… that’s not to takeaway from Gabriel, the kid deserved to play, I just think the signal the sub sent wasn’t a confidence builder and I think it was a misdiagnosis of the problem.

Things didn’t improve anyway, even with the electric Brazilian on the pitch, because the problem wasn’t the front three, it was what sat behind them. The manager took off Ceballos for Willock, which added a little more energy, but not much purpose. Again, rotating like for like wasn’t going to shake the game.

It also didn’t stem the flow of Bournemouth, we ended up forming deep banks to protect against their growing confidence… then the icing on the cake, Emery took Saka off for Lucas Torriera. Hard to work out what he was doing there, was LT a DM, a #10 or an auxiliary winger? Either way, it didn’t do much for our structure. We only started getting chances again when Bournemouth threw everything at landing a point, that created counter-attack chances and we did manage to hit the post late on after the impressive Cal Chambers put Auba in.

So at home, against one of the leakiest teams in the league, we managed one shot on target in open play. That is as strong an indictment of Emery as I can muster. Edu, sitting in the stands, did not look happy. How could he be after sanctioning such a big spend this summer, we have not moved forward.

A lot of fans will point to the omittance of Mesut Ozil as a glaringly obvious fix. Again, I cannot repeat this often enough, he’s really not my cup of tea. However, it’s hard to argue that the German couldn’t have influenced a game like today. The players will know that, and this sort of treatment will build pressure on Emery.

The manager is making a martyr out of the German in the same way he did with Ramsey last season. The longer the player sits in metaphorical prison on hunger strike, the louder and more appealing his silent message becomes. None of this would matter if Emery had made this decision in preseason and not shown the player to us. None of this would matter if he hadn’t given him one of the five armbands. None of this would matter if the alternative was 20 chances a game and electric ‘I DON’T MISS OZIL’ football.

To make matters worse for the manager, the pregame Twitter banter has a magical moment from Ozil at training. It also has a damning video of Xhaka gifting Auba a goal after a mistake in training.

If Ozil is a political prisoner, then Granit Xhaka is a sham President after a stolen election. He doesn’t speak the language of the people and his football policies stink. He was mostly ok today, but that’s all he ever is. His best trait is arguing with the referee. He doesn’t drive the team forward, he doesn’t inspire and his presence flattens the energy. Today offered up perfect conditions for him to thrive and he still couldn’t muster a worldy.

Unai Emery is a bad artist. He has the water paints, the canvass, a perfect view on the Amalfi Coast, and he’s out there painting dick pics and wondering why his funders are pissed. The perfect conditions for his system to flourish appear to be Championship sides or Europa Cup ties. We’re 11 games into the season, there’s no style and the philosophy seems to be ‘hope to nick a goal then defend like we’re in the last minute of a Sunday League Cup Final.’

There is no excuse for drab football this season. There is no excuse to defend a 1-0 lead at home against Bournemouth with defensive subs in the last 10. What we are seeing on the pitch is bad… but as I said last week, Emery can point to the table, that’s his safety blanket until things get tasty in December.

Roll on another week.

Enjoy the win, savour being 3rd in the league a point behind City… but don’t count your chickens just yet, because until performances start to arrive, this is all a big lie that will correct just as you start to believe.

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Un na naai

Qna

He’s joint top for assists playing out of position at full back lol

Bob N16

On a positive note, I feel that our squad has progressed well since Wenger’s departure. By the start of next season I’m confident we will have shipped out Mustafi, Özil and 1/2 others and with four coming in, I honestly feel we’ll be on an exciting, upward trajectory. Having such a talented group of youngsters in the 18-20 range means that our potential is fantastic. There is a caveat, Wilshere is I’m afraid a classic example of a young player looking like a potential world beater who faded. But we have four 18 year olds (I include Saliba, he looked… Read more »

Guns of Hackney

Has Pepe been sold yet or loaned out?

Anyone else think that Sokratis was fed by catapult by his parents when he was a baby?

Un na naai

Bob

He didn’t just fade. He was overused and ruined through injury whilst being shunted around. Same with ox Theo and Ramsey

Grouvillegooner

Some humble suggestions for Unai. Pick Chambers and Holding as the starting centre backs by the end of this month. Do not think that Ozil is the solution to creativity , he will create but there are so many things that he does not do and it has been like this from the day that he signed. Stop picking Xhaka Stop defenders putting their hands behind their backs. Try to make your thoughts at press conferences more rational and less of a rambling confusion of thoughts (this might lead to more coherent team selection). Keep Pepe’s confidence up until the… Read more »

Kamp

The rhetoric surrounding winning ugly and keeping a clean sheet is disappointing, but not at all surprising. Try looking at it from a positive point of view. We are slowly rediscovering old characteristics; winning ugly, scrapping, standing up for each other. Not being bullied. You can’t look at an ugly win and say ‘where’s the flair’ , nor can you look at us thumping relegation fodder and complaining we are flat track bullies. Like it or not, Emery won this week and his detractors have lost. The future looks good off the back of the Europa showings, and City are… Read more »

Un na naai

Kamp It’s fine winning ugly if there are clear signs on the pitch that it’s working and we aren’t fluking our way through matches. But we aren’t. We are open in midfield and shipping more chances than ANY TEAM in the top 5 leagues. We are poor in every area of the pitch. I’m happy to win ugly if our defence is limiting chances and organised If our midfield move the ball early and with purpose If the attack is playing wide and on the shoulder ready to counter and knowing fully that our deep bank will find them at… Read more »

Bamford10

New post.

Bojangles

I’ve been browsing a few Un**ed and spuds blogs.

At Un**Ed they seem evenly split between OGS and the players being to blame. Some blaming the Glazers.

Spuds are all over the place but there seems to be a general consensus that can best be summarised with three words. Poch Knows Best.

I did get a laugh from this though.

“The question everyone wants an answer to is whether Pochettino is the man that can take Spurs back to their former glory. Or is it time the Argentinian capitulates like his team has in recent weeks?”

Edu me a favour

If we look back to how emery got the job , we were told that he jumped in and stole away the position with his detailed file on each player , and how he would improve them – (we all read this story , how true it is I don’t know , but I can only go on what we were told) – now correct me if I’m wrong here , but do we think that he has improved the players like he said he would ? No. I mean , it seems that was his usp when he was… Read more »

Goobergooner

Un na, Best comment from you I’ve read. I don’t want to wait the season out to see proper on field progress, but I can’t for the life of me see Emery being sacked unless the table is showing us done and dusted for even 4th place at any stage of the season. The summer seemed to be one of the most exciting in recent times but our manager seems to be overwhelmed with the responsibility. Surely Emery can get these fellas playing with some sort of style. He needs to get a few pints down and just let loose… Read more »

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