Arsenal: Unai Emery philosophy seems to be right in the sweet spot

Unai Emery has indicated that Alexandre Lacazette won’t be starting at Arsenal any time soon, but his philosophy on the matter is sound, at least.

I was more than a little disappointed to hear Unai Emery talk about how unlikely it was that we would see Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang starting together any time soon. His logic was that Arsenal need to control possession more, and having two strikers doesn’t allow for that.

After I got over my initial shock that he still wasn’t going to start these two together, I settled into a positive mindset. Everything that we have seen from Emery’s philosophy hits the sweet spot of being exactly what fans have been wanting.

He has shown a dedication to holding a high line and pressing the other team, and now he is establishing that he also wants to control possession. Which is literally everything that Arsenal should be doing. Arsene Wenger instilled the possession aspect, but there was always a bit of intensity lacking.

Emery is building that intensity now and, while it hasn’t latched on yet, you can bet that it will in the future. He is still in the initial stages of installing his version of the improvements to the club and so long as that is the case, there are going to be rough spots.

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It all makes sense though. The players that he is choosing, the ideals that he has. The problem isn’t going to come down to the philosophy, it’s going to come down to personnel. One reason why I’m so passionate about seeing Lacazette start is because it’s not like Ozil or Mkhitaryan are doing much in the ways of securing possession. They’ve both been loosey-goosey and fairly lackluster.

But we’re three games into the experiment. The ongoing experiment. So while it’s still likely that both I and many other fans will get riled up over Lacazette’s limited usage, I think it’s probably best that we trust in what Emery is doing and give him the freedom to actually do what he has planned and not concern ourselves so much with how he gets there.

Emery is bringing the values that we wanted at the club under Wenger and he is melding them with the values that we appreciated in Wenger. That is a positive step forward. I have a hard time believing that Lacazette would be leaning out the exit with so many moving pieces still circling around within the club.