Arsenal: Where is Unai Emery going wrong?

According to many, Thursday night’s performance was the worst in the Unai Emery era at Arsenal, and that is taking into account a long list of poor performances this season. You have to ask, then, where is it all going wrong?

Let’s put into perspective how bad Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat to BATE Borisov was. BATE hadn’t played a competitive game in two months and were still in preseason. Last season, Arsenal played Borisov under Arsene Wenger with a supposedly weaker team and over two games scored 10 goals. This shouldn’t really have been close, nevermind a loss.

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That said, it is only half time in the tie and you would fully expect the Gunners to turn the game around at the Emirates. Nevertheless, Unai Emery needs to ask questions of himself, because surely he is seeing the same poor performances we all are.

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Frustratingly, though, he still keeps trying the same approach over and over again and expecting different results. But these results are not materializing. It was exactly the same problem under Wenger and it was his downfall in the end. Perhaps it is stubbornness or maybe he is just too proud to try something else. Make no mistake, though, Emery won’t be afforded the amount of time Wenger was. The ‘Emery Out’ brigade seems to be growing by the week. If Arsenal drop out of Europe next week, then you can imagine that it will reach fever pitch.

The main problem that Emery must solve is the Mesut Ozil situation. The two haven’t seen eye-to-eye from the minute Emery took over and, with Ozil repeatedly omitted from matchday squads, you just know that he will be out the door come the summer. Dropping Ozil per se is not an issue. The issue stems from what Emery is doing to replace the German. The team is being set up too defensively in the majority of games and relying on a few individuals to have a great game. It is not going to work long-term, especially when those individuals are Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, capable but hardly consistently spectacular footballer.

If you drop Ozil, then you need someone like Aaron Ramsey or Denis Suarez to come in, a player to replicate his creativity and craft in the final third. In Suarez’s case, that was what he brought in for, but currently, all he seems to be getting is 30 minutes off the bench. Thursday night’s game would have been perfect for him to build up fitness. He should have started.

And this is all while ignoring the major vulnerabilities at the other end. I could go on and on about the state of the defence and Emery’s refusal to trial a young defender in the team, especially given at how poor a defender Shkodran Mustafi is — at what point does Emery say ‘you’re not good enough’? Dinos Mavropanos and Zech Medley are ready to step up but, instead, Mustafi and other experienced defenders are committing mistake after mistake.

In the last few weeks, Unai Emery has spoken about how far Arsenal are behind their top-four rivals and that the Europa League is their best bet for Champions League football next season. So you would have thought that the team would have been set up better and be better prepared on Thursday.

I have supported Emery over the last few weeks and I will continue to, for now. But given Arsenal’s current performance level, how can they be expected to end the season positively? If things aren’t put right soon, then the Unai Emery supporters will have less and less of an argument. This isn’t going as many had hoped.