4 reasons why Unai Emery should be replaced by Arsenal

Arsenal aren't worthy of Wednesday night football, are they? Vitoria SC versus Arsenal kicked off on a Wednesday evening in Portugal and the Gunners came away with yet another disaster-class, mounting even more pressure on Unai Emery's shoulders in the process.

As plenty of fans and pundits claim, this Arsenal squad is clearly underachieving. The positivity that came with an early unbeaten run last season has since dissipated, much like the 'Emery-ball' which some Arsenal fans hailed. This season, comfortable wins have been few and far between for Arsenal.

Two UEFA Europa League wins over Eintracht Frankfurt and Standard Liege and a 5-0 thrashing of Nottingham Forest at home are probably the only matches they've won convincingly. Unsurprisingly, Arsenal are yet to win a Premier League game by a margin of two goals or more this season, which pretty much sums up how poor the Gunners have been.

Raul Sanllehi and co. have a decision on their hands. Do they trust Emery till the end of the season or act quickly by sacking him in the coming international break and try to bring things back on track? As of now, under Emery, the squad hasn't shown any progress.

If this continues, Arsenal will at best have to spend yet another year in UEFA Europa League or even miss out on continental football if the slump is not stopped. Lack of UEFA Champions League football would eventually see players like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette seek greener pastures.

Granit Xhaka's situation hasn't helped Unai Emery's cause either. Despite knowing that the Swiss international isn't a fan favourite, Emery decided to make him the captain and start him week in week out. The fans slowly started losing their patience when the coach refrained from dropping him, and they ended up taking out frustration through boos and sarcastic cheers on Xhaka, which instigated a terrible reaction from the captain.

And now, Emery decides to throw him under the bus by stripping him off the captaincy, which is not acceptable. Situations with Mesut Ozil, and how he has decided to put Nicolas Pepe into the mix since day 1 despite knowing he is young and has come from a relatively poor league, shows how baffling Emery's decision-making has been lately.

As an Arsenal fan, trying to be optimistic at this stage of the season is a very difficult task and many feel that the Spaniard has reached a point of no return. Emery seems to have lost the dressing room. Thus, sacking him is probably the need of the hour.

That said, here are 4 concrete reasons why Arsenal should part ways with the Spanish tactician.

#4 Arsenal lack identity

Rewinding to the Arsene Wenger era, if there is one thing Arsenal did flawlessly, it was playing with an identity. Wenger, despite all the criticism and hate he received from the fanbase in his latter years at Arsenal, never switched to a pragmatic brand of football and often stuck to his philosophy, i.e playing free-flowing attacking football.

Although Wenger struggled to win games consistently, scoring goals was never a problem. Right now, Arsenal are neither winning games nor are they able to produce beautiful football, which is worrying.

Arsene Wenger laid down his marker at the club and Arsenal were one of the most exciting teams in world football under his tutelege, which is why the fans feel entitled to watch attacking football at the Emirates.

Last season, Unai Emery imposed his ideas quickly into the squad and Arsenal played some brilliant, eye-catching football as they went on a 22-game unbeaten run in the first half of the campaign. However, their season fell apart after horrible defeats to Wolves, Crystal Palace and Leicester City, followed by long-term injuries to Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin.

Unai Emery's first season wasn't the best, but they were far from terrible and Arsenal were only behind Man City and Liverpool in 'most goals scored' in the league. This season, Arsenal sit 7th in most goals scored after 11 games, a poor return considering the attacking talent they have at their disposal.

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#3 No defensive structure

Bernd Leno is the reason why Arsenal have conceded 16 goals and not 30

Arsenal signed David Luiz and Kieran Tierney in the summer of 2019 in an attempt to bolster the defence, and though it was obvious the two wouldn't have had a massive impact on the team suddenly, the fans and the board expected some improvement from last season. Fun fact, Arsenal conceded 13 goals and had a GD of 11 after matchday 11 last season, compared to 15 goals conceded and a GD of 1 this season.

With more options for Unai Emery in the back-line, the coach was expected to have more defensive organisation and a better away record this year, considering how ruthless Arsenal were in buying the players he wanted. However, it has all gone downhill for Arsenal this season.

The lack of defensive structure is a mixture of three things; no protection for the back four, players struggling to play in a high line, and terrible positioning by the defenders and midfielders when the team gets caught on counters. Arsenal are conceding 16.3 shots per ninety minutes, which is their worst tally in over five years.

The Gunners have the 13th most valuable squad in world football, which tells us there isn't a shortage of talent, but Emery has failed to deploy a system which would help get the best out of each one of them.

It's still early in the season, and by the looks of it, the board aren't looking for replacements just yet, but Emery needs to step up show some tactical nous to get Arsenal out of this vacuum, which he is very capable of doing.

#2 Questionable tactics and unsettled formations

Lucas Torreira has been made to play as a box-to-box midfielder when his best position is as a CDM

In the 18 games Arsenal have played this season across all competitions, Unai Emery started the campaign with a 4-2-3-1 attacking formation, followed by a 4-3-3, and then switching to a 4-4-2 diamond, with the latest one being a 3-4-3. This just goes to show that Unai Emery is yet to find his ideal formation and has kept tinkering with his line ups for a while now, which has irked the fans to some extent.

The players have found it difficult to adapt to different formations, and the instructions from the coaching staff seem to be unclear to them. The likes of Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka are not being played in their preferred positions, which has impacted the team heavily as well as their self-confidence. The manager is also yet to find a way to involve both Lacazette and Aubameyang in the starting XI in a way they can both play at their best.

The Gunners have been relentlessly dropping leads, as they have blown four leads in their last four games in all competitions and are without a win for more than a month. Emery will have a chance to improve this form when they travel to King Power Stadium on Saturday.

The Gunners tend to play better when they're underdogs and if Emery gets a result on Saturday, things could be back on track for the Gunners.

#1 Reliance on individual brilliance

Talking about individual brilliance, the only reason why Arsenal are in the top five in the Premier League is solely because of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Despite very limited service, the Gabonese international has somehow managed to score 8 goals in 11 league games this season, 5 fewer than Manchester United have managed to score as a team all season.

A system which overly relies on a single player's abilities is a system not many players would enjoy playing in, as it restricts the abilities of others and doesn't provide the freedom a player would want to have while playing for a club like Arsenal.

Lacazette has failed to revive himself after sustaining an ankle injury a few weeks ago and with players like Bukayo Saka and Nicolas Pepe still adapting to the Premier League, the pressure is more than ever on Aubameyang to deliver.

Unsurprisingly, he has been immense for Arsenal. the North London club have failed to play like a team in recent weeks and players like Aubameyang, Guendouzi and Pepe have rescued their side from horrible defeats this season.

The Gunners play Leicester City on Saturday, and Emery will have to outclass Brendan Rogers on paper if he expects to get back into challenging for top four because a loss would take Arsenal 9 points behind the Foxes. The home fans would show up in great numbers and Jamie Vardy would be excited by the prospect of being able to sack a manager with some goals to his name.