Arsenal: Away form not a tactical issue, and Unai Emery gets it

Unai Emery spoke about Arsenal’s mentality away from home this week. He rightly understands that the issues on the road are not tactical based.

There has been one overarching problem to Unai Emery’s first season in north London. Substantial progress has been made in many areas at Arsenal. Defensive improvements, quicker combination play, greater tactical flexibility. These are all elements that the Spaniard has introduced and developed. But there is still one major issue that needs to be solved: the away form.

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The Gunners have played 15 away matches in the Premier League thus far. They have won just five and lost six. That is certainly not a good record — it currently ranks them 10th in the away table with 19 points. What is more concerning is that they actually have a negative goal difference, scoring 26 and conceding a horrific 28. There are serious problems.

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With four of the remaining six matches being away from home, the first being a trip to Vicarage Rd to face a hardened Watford side that dispatched Arsenal last season at home, Emery was asked about the improvements the team has made of late in contrast to the troubles they have incurred on the road. This is what he said:

"“This team have a good mentality and they are improving, we are improving and the table is giving us this answer – we are improving. We can see two things, one is the amazing response at home, big matches and big results and away we are doing sometimes good matches. We are playing some matches and being competitive but in other moments the opposition, they are being more competitive than us and they battle us but each match is a new challenge and response for us – starting Monday.”"

Clearly, in Emery’s mind, the poor away form is not a tactical problem. There may be tactical issues in certain games at certain times, but they are merely the symptom of a deeper-rooted cause. For Emery, the away difficulties stem from the mentality of the team, not the performance on the pitch.

Emery speaks about being ‘competitive’ and that, ‘in other moments’, his players are out-battled by their opponents. At home, those moments are few and far between. As such, Arsenal are much better able to control the game. But away from home, those ‘moments’ are far more regular, meaning that command in the midfield and extended periods of possession are difficult to engineer.

It is small things: winning tackles; beating your opponent to second balls; playing with confidence and boldness in deep positions despite being under pressure. These elements are much easier to execute when you are in the comforts of your own home with 60,000 people cheering you on. It is very different on the road.

Whether Emery and his players can change a mentality in four matches, I am not so sure. It usually takes time. A whole lot of time. But if they want to squeeze into the top four, that is exactly what they must do.