5 things we learned from Unai Emery’s first game in charge of Arsenal

#3 Passing out from the back won’t work immediately

Cech looked uncomfortable in possession on Sunday

There has been a lot of talk about Unai Emery’s ‘football philosophy’, and how he wants his side to play. It was clear within minutes that one thing that he wanted Arsenal to do was pass the ball out from the back.

Every time they got a goal kick, the centre-backs split, and dropped deep to receive the ball. However, something else we saw was that this Arsenal side to not have the qualities to be playing out from the back, and they regularly put themselves in more trouble when they gave the ball away.

In goal, Petr Cech made some superb saves, but he looked wholly uncomfortable trying to pass the ball out. In this respect, Cech is quite an old-fashioned goalkeeper. He spent much of his career at Chelsea, where he often played with a target man in Didier Drogba or Diego Costa, so had the option to kick the ball long.

In front of him, Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi aren’t exactly the most technically gifted centre-backs. Emery needs time to bring in the players he wants to play his system, and he hasn’t had that yet.