Arsenal: Unai Emery giveth, and Unai Emery taketh away

Arsenal’s draw against Crystal Palace was disappointing, and it may mark the first time when Unai Emery made some hugely questionable decisions.

Hindsight is 20/20, so it’s always easier to look back and say that someone made a poor decision because it didn’t work. That said, for the first time in the new era at Arsenal, Unai Emery made some really questionable decisions in an area that he had started to make clear was a strength of his – substitutions.

The starting XI against Palace was solid enough. I think we can all agree that we would have liked to see Sokratis out there instead of either Holding or Mustafi, and Xhaka playing leftback is always a sketchy thing, but that’s not where I’m here to talk about.

I’m here to talk about Emery’s choice of replacements. Up until Palace, he had done a remarkable job of making the right decisions in terms of who to put in the game and who to take out.

Granted it’s not an easy decision to make. And even getting half of it wrong makes it look like a wrong decision altogether. By half of it, I mean who goes in. Emery got that part right. Welbeck and Ramsey coming in made total sense.

These were two guys who could change the course of the game. Ramsey is a self-starter and Welbeck’s athleticism showcased massively.

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It’s the other half that Unai Emery really got wrong. The people that he took off made very little sense. His first substitution was to take out Mesut Ozil in favor of Danny Welbeck. Now, granted, Ozil wasn’t at his best either, but ask yourself this – at that point, who was more likely to make a difference, Ozil or Iwobi?

Iwobi should have come off, hands down. No questions asked. He had been awful that match, and yet he stayed on for the full 90.

Originally, it was Lacazette coming off for Welbeck, but that turned into Ozil coming off. Lacazette is another individual who had a really poor match and would have made more sense coming off. But instead, it was Ozil.

The second substitution, to introduce Ramsey, would see a striker come off. But it wasn’t Lacazette again, who certainly hadn’t made the most of being left on. He had been pretty poor, same as Iwobi.

It was Aubameyang who came off.

There was a lot that went wrong on against Crystal Palace, so I’m not going to sit here and say that Emery was the main reason we couldn’t make it 12 straight wins, but it didn’t help. Thankfully, this match was the oddball out.