Arsenal: David Luiz, Sokratis the Unai Emery defect

David Luiz and Sokratis are destroying Arsenal from the inside out as a centre-half pairing. Unai Emery needs to take action, before it is too late.

David Luiz and Sokratis are bringing out the worst in each other at Arsenal and it’s time for Unai Emery to do something about it. After gift-wrapping a draw for Spurs with their unique brand of amateur defending two weeks ago, they came fresh off the international break and gave away another two points to Watford on Sunday. At a certain point, Unai Emery has to accept what he’s seeing on the pitch.

Find the latest episode of the Pain in the Arsenal Podcast here — Unai Emery out?

Yes, Luiz and Sokratis are the two most experienced central defenders at Arsenal. They’re also more dangerous to their users than Fentanyl laced, black market Opioids. It simply can’t continue that the starting central defenders are so catastrophically error-prone.

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Two weeks ago, I wrote a column on the importance of Unai Emery instituting a culture of awareness and accountability at the club. The takeaway from that piece was that no amount of striking talent by Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or tactical nous from Emery would cancel out unforced errors at the rate Arsenal were making them. In typical Arsenal fashion, they respond by giving away two more points in the very next match. These points will be missed in May.

So what is Emery going to do about it? Probably nothing. And that is exactly the problem. It’s almost a guarantee that Sokratis and Luiz will be in the line-up next week because accountability doesn’t exist. For some players, there is seemingly no limit to the number of mistakes they can make before being benched.

As long as this continues, Arsenal will never be taken seriously as a legitimate contender. Professional football is hard enough without the two most experienced players on the pitch making errors which would get teenagers thrown out of their academy. Whether he realizes it or not, Emery’s reluctance to hold repeat offenders like Luiz and Sokratis accountable for unforced errors is sending a terrible message.

Keeping his team from beating themselves is a critical aspect of any manager’s job. It’s not happening at Arsenal. If anything, it’s getting worse. That’s why disasters like the second half against Watford will persist until Emery gets tough. Just look at how many error-prone players are in the starting XI on any given day.

If it isn’t Xhaka, it’s Luiz or Sokratis or Bernd Leno. What specific steps is Emery taking to correct this? Because putting his arm around their shoulders and taking heat for them in the media isn’t working. Maybe it’s time for Emery to begin asking hard questions and making hard decisions.

Luiz and Sokratis have now surrendered eight goals in four games as a pairing. That’s relegation-level stuff. Is this why Calum Chambers has been taken out of the line-up? So the team can have a 32-year-old Luiz making the mistakes Chambers would actually be learning from? As for Sokratis, he’s an average defender on a good day. On a bad one, which he’s having more and more of lately, he’s Championship quality. There is very little he does well at this stage of his career. He’s slow, he can’t pass and now he’s making unforced errors by the bushel.

Not only are Arsenal shipping goals at an alarming rate; Sokratis and Luiz who are bubble wrapping them and paying the freight. The sooner Emery admits the Luiz and Sokratis experiment has been a catastrophic failure, the sooner his team can stop digging holes for themselves to climb out of. It’s an utter disgrace that their two most experienced players are this error-prone.

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The Luiz-Sokratis pairing is destroying the team from the inside out. If Emery doesn’t sit one or both of them down, Arsenal can start planning for another year in the Europa League.

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