KING PEPE DELIVERS, but Emery continues to flunk

by .

Ain’t no party like a Thursday night party… was literally me until last night.

Overall, what a shite game that was.

The kids offered us up a prime serving of first-team-T-bone steak and it was not delicious.

Our midfield was porous, the defence was all over the place, and we made a pub team look as dangerous as the menace that was Sheffield United on Monday.

We went one goal down after 8 minutes. The familiar theme of having no midfield to protect the defence was apparent. Three of our ‘THEY’LL SAVE EMERY’ defenders conspired to give Edwards space to convert from 8 yards (Hector, KT, RH). Very embarrassing, but at least only 50% of of the stadium was there to see it.

You kind of hoped it was just a typical Emery start, that maybe we’d clunk back into gear and start treating the Portuguese outfit with the disrespect they deserved. We didn’t, we actually managed to make things worse. Zero shape in the middle, constantly exposed to the counter-attack, organisational chaos all around.

We clawed one back though, Kieran Tierney found the head of the Brazilian Kevin Davies, 5 goals for Gabriel. Sadly, it didn’t take long to gift the advantage back, AMN, sitting in centre midfield, turned into traffic, Vitoria broke against a weak damn and breached with a response within 4 minutes.

All I can say about the second half is the manager subbed in the correct players, namely, Nicolas Pepe. The much-maligned Ivorian showed his class with two brilliant freekicks from different positions. The first was from further out and curled precisely into the far left of the goal. The second was a rocket from closer range at the death from about 20 yards.

Majestic. BUT WHERE WAS THE GOAL IN OPEN PLAY?! Just jokes kids, I love Pepe.

So what did we learn?

Well, it seems clear that Unai Emery is losing the PR battle. He was booed fairly at half time by the 12 fans that bothered to show up to the game. His second string were as insipid as the regulars. We were a mess and my diagnosis is that the Premier League infection finally spread to the Europa League kids. We didn’t deserve to win, but we did. Last season, fans would have buried their heads in ‘BUT THIS IS WENGER’S TEAM,’ this season, I think people are wising up to the reality… performances matter and we’re still not delivering them.

The reality of the Emery is this: It doesn’t matter who he puts on the pitch, no one has a fucking clue what he wants. The gap between midfield and attack is so wide, it often looks insurmountable, the only option is a long ball… then when play switches, all our midfielders are behind the play. There’s no structure to our setup. Do we even bother playing between the lines? Our midfield seems offended by the concept, which makes our play incredibly one-dimensional.

Kieran Tierney, Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin all add a bit of quality to proceedings, but they can’t fix an average manager that lacks the basic skills… like, you know, communicating in English.

It’s quite amazing that I had to debate the merits of language last season, but it’s so fucking obvious, if you can’t master the native tongue, you’re going to fail. Above is Robin, one of the greatest Arsenal strikers I’ve ever witnessed, calling out the fucking obvious: Communication matters. Poor English is a barrier, but more to the point, even if you could speak Spanish, would the ideas be any clearer? Doubtful.

Can I just repeat: People challenged the view that hiring a coach that couldn’t speak English was a bad idea. Seriously. That’s the internet at its best.

Mesut Ozil continues to be a problem. He’s out here posting a picture of himself looking like your mum’s best friend Trisha who works in ESSEX TRIMS in Clapton and the internet has gone wild.

‘Babes, I’m like, Trisha Gandhi right now, frosted tips and non-violent protest always’

The whole internet reacted viciously to his omittance from the squad. A bit unfair, Mesut hangs out with dictators, probably injured himself playing computer games last season, and he seems to have a deeper aversion to a hard days work than that bitch grasshopper who fucked about all summer while the squirrel gathered nuts. Point is, only Emery could lose a PR war to someone that’s a dosser. To be clear, I’m on Ozil’s side for no real reason other than the slight suspicion that if Emery is for something, I should be against it.

Emery won the battle yesterday, but perversely, that was another savage blow on his effort in the mighty war.

A lot of Arsenal players liked that androgynous Ozil Instagram picture. That tells you something. Firstly, they have bad taste in pictures, secondly, the players are siding with their teammate. When things go south for Emery, it’s going to be a tsunami that strikes him… and it’ll be far more brutal than anything Wenger ever faced.

Why? Because the players know they can end Emery.

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Paulinho

Leicester’s first eleven is easily the equal if not better than ours. It’s similar to Chelsea, in that Rodgers has walked into a squad with players that naturally compliment each other. Ndidi offers that defensive strength next to the talented Tielemans; Madison then can concentrate on playing just further ahead, and he’s got the lethal Vardy working in front of him. All fit like a glove.

Chilwell is their star though. Exceptional footballer.

Dissenter

CC
I said their starting 11 of last season was better than ours…I stand by that. The Leicester staring 11 of April 28th 2019 had better players that the Arsenal starting 11 of April 28th 2019.
I also predicted that they will be in the running for top-4 this season, that doesn’t sound so bizarre now, does it?
Cheers

Mysticleaves

The midfield players of Leicester aren’t better than ours man to man. They just have a better team, a better planning and organization with results to show for it too.

Man to man I also don’t believe Chelsea have a better squad than us. We aren’t just performing

Peckobill

There’s no top 4 for us at the end of the season , there’s clearly 4 better teams than us . Maybe that’s why emery is going the EL route as he knows he lacks the tactical nous to compete with the likes of Brenda of fat frank , risky though in a knockout tournament especially as he’ll have to rely on someone else to knock out Chelsea and hope no one big drops in from the champions league teams

Peckobill

Mystic
They both have better managers though which when you think about it’s quite shocking

Tee

All these. “Their players are better than ours” comments is another way to divert critism. Emery is the number one problem. No comment dribbling can change it Leciester finished below us last season and are presently above us with a new manger . This goes to show the power of a good coach on a team. Y’all can shout xhaka for as long as you like but it’s one man who picks him above torriera and whenever he wishes to play torriera, eh plays him out of position. It will be disingenuous to say Chelsea players are better than ours… Read more »

Paulinho

“Man to man I also don’t believe Chelsea have a better squad than us. We aren’t just performing”

Dear old dear.

None of our midfielders are anywhere near their quality. Utterly absurd to suggest otherwise.

Pierre

Chelsea have technically better midfielders than Arsenal . Hence they keep the ball better.

What chelsea are showing is that you can compete in this league with small technical players.

They remind me of the Arsenal team that consisted of Fabregas, Hleb, Rosicky, Nasri, Adebayor .

Whether they will fail in a similar way to Arsenal in those days where we would be up there around Christmas and fade in the last few months , remains to be seen .

Pierre

If I remember rightly, kovacic and jorginho were heavily criticised by many on le Grove and the media last season . To me , it shows the importance of having a manager who can get the best out his players . Jorginho and kovacic are the type of players I love watching , if they were at Arsenal at this present time I doubt if they would make the starting line up . We go to Sheffield united and leave our more technical players out of the starting line up and if we had jorginho and kovacic there is no… Read more »

Un na naai

PhD

What’s with your bitchy defence of the bbc? Classic girly man infected at whatever leftie mind poisoning “education centre” you attended.

Another booksmart fool.

TheLegendaryDB10

Cone on The Arsenal!!!

Glad to see that we are already 1 nil up. I hear Sokrates scored….

Come on Luiz!!

I haven’t even finished writing my post that we score another one!!

TheLegendaryDB10

Lolz

As much as it was a pen, what a circus that was.

Everybody knows it’s a pen but the ref calls a bullshit decision that Zaha dives. This is then referred to VAR who, after much muttering and agreeing, calls, to everyone’s shock, that its a … pen.

Well done to the ref who once again managed to put himself and VAR at the centre of the action. At least, for once, we can be grateful that VAR has actually made a correct decision.

Wasi

Club in shambles and I love to see it. Emery’s baby Xhaka cussing the supporters , shrugging Emery off and cowering down the tunnel. Im sure Emery has no idea how to deal with it now. LOL. Probably just gonna give him another start next weekend to make up with him. But at least he is starting to understand that Xhaka is THE problem in the side. 50% culpable for the second goal and offered nothing in offense.( the rest 50% is Luiz btw for forgetting where his marker was). Fans singing Ozil song at 85 mins in full voice.… Read more »

Wasi

Also what did the VAR actually do for the 2nd Sokratis goal. Chambers was the one who was fouled. 3 players were literally falling on him.

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