Arsenal Vs Chelsea: Second goal defends Unai Emery

Arsenal lost to Chelsea on Saturday evening and were roundly outplayed for large periods. However, Unai Emery’s plan was illustrated in the Gunners’ second goal. Here’s why.

I feared the worst watching the opening 20 minutes of Arsenal’s treacherous trip to Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening. The match was played at a tempo and tenacity that this team simply isn’t capable of handling. And so it proved, with Chelsea carving through their visitors with great and alarming ease. The Unai Emery era was not starting well.

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But while the Gunners would go on to lose the match 3-2 thanks to a late, turned Marcos Alonso finish and were largely outplayed for large portions of the match, especially early on in the first half and for much of the second half, there were some positives.

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One of those positives came in the form of the second goal. A key principle of Emery’s management during these early stages has been his insistence on his team playing out from the back, starting from the goalkeeper and working through the phases of play into more advanced areas of the pitch. It is certainly a work in progress, judging by the early results, but it is a ploy that has served plenty of teams well during the latest footballing revolution of the past decade.

The second goal was a prime example of the success that this strategy can achieve. Starting with Petr Cech, Arsenal, under pressure from Chelsea, played the ball from one player to another, across the defence, into the midfield, forwards down the left flank through Nacho Monreal, over to the right flank to Hector Bellerin, who slipped Henrikh Mkhitaryan down the line, and then to Alex Iwobi on the cutback to emphatically finish first time. It was a lovely move that encapsulated the style of play that Emery wants to implement.

The problem is that it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the opposition’s high press intercepts the ball high up the pitch. A misplaced pass, a nipped-in tackle. It takes just one slight error to let the opposition in on goal. But the control and domination that it allows a team to exert on the match are unrivalled, allowing them to build pressure through waves of relentless attacks.

In these early stages, there will be plenty of hiccups. It is a new style for many of these players and there will be growing pains as they adapt to a new system and style. But this goal illustrated the importance of persisting with it and the need for patience as Emery continues to shape this side in his own image.

It will take time. It will require patience, persistence and resilience. There will be problems, poor performances and mistakes. But this goal proved that it works and that this team is capable of doing it. Emery just needs time.