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Arsenal lost their opening fixture of the season against reigning champions, Manchester City 2-0. Manchester City were always favourites to win even away from home.
Arsenal, to their credit, were able to keep the score low even though they were thoroughly outclassed from start to finish in every department. Manchester City have better quality players whose performances have been optimised in Pep Guardiola’s system.
Unai Emery is known for his extensive preparation techniques and should go back to the drawing room and address the following issues-
#5 The Left Back problem
The first choice left back, Nacho Monreal and Sead Kolasinac are both out injured. In the match against City, Ainsley Maitland-Niles stepped in at left back and was having a decent game until his match ended prematurely after tripping over Kyle Walker’s trailing leg.
Stephan Lichsteiner stepped in admirably and stabilised the left wing, but he is a right back and was playing out of position. Lichsteiner is 34 years old though, and it remains to be seen if he can endure 90 minutes of football week in and week out.
#4 Goalkeeper
Petr Cech is still a good goalkeeper at age 36. He still makes good saves and brings with him years of experience at the top level. Unfortunately, he is no longer a great goalkeeper. He should have done more for the first goal and his distribution was poor throughout.
He even almost scored a comical own goal and didn’t exude much confidence. Bernd Leno needs to start the next match, and not playing him will cost Arsenal throughout the season, sooner or later.
#3 High press
Emery’s style of play focuses on the high press and it was seen throughout the match. Arsenal’s players charged at the defenders and central midfielders when out of possession with the intention of forcing mistakes and closing gaps.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as expected. The high press was uncoordinated as some players pressed while others switched off. This created gaps which the City players happily exploited except once when Ederson misplaced a pass which Arsenal failed to capitalise on.
#2 Defensive Midfield
Arsenal played with Guendouzi and Xhaka in centre midfield, but it didn’t work out. Xhaka was poor. His passing was off, he was unable to keep the ball and was defensively inept. He performs well when given time and space, but that wasn’t to be.
Guendouzi was bright and showed a lot of fight and character. He is 19 years old though, and it showed in the numerous mistakes he made. He has a lot of potential though and is one for the future. Leaving Torreira on the bench backfired on Emery and he needs to start, preferably with Guendouzi in midfield.
#1 The initial build-up
Another characteristic of Emery’s style is the slow build-up from the back. We saw that against City with the two centre backs on either side of the 18-yard box hugging the by-line. Cech passes to one of them and they pass it to Guendouzi or Xhaka depending on availability.
They passed it back to Cech who panicked and hoofed it upfield where Arsenal lost possession. This happened many times and such build-up play is really hard against a team like Manchester City. Emery needs to work on either improving the build-up or adapt and change the style to suit the Premier League.
