Arsenal: Is Unai Emery improvoing the team?

Arsenal moved up to third in the Premier League with a win on Sunday afternoon. But has Unai Emery actually improved this team?

After Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Bournemouth, thanks to some lacklustre results elsewhere and a hard-earned (read: fortunate) clean sheet, Arsenal sit in third position in the Premier League. They are one point behind champions Manchester City, four points clear of Spurs and six points clear of Manchester United.

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If you offered that position to any fan at the start of the season, they would have taken it, no matter how it was achieved. So all should be well and good around the Emirates, right? Well, not quite.

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The results may be encouraging — Arsenal have lost just one game all year, which was away to Liverpool, who still have a 100% record — but the performances that lead to those results are not, and when it comes to replicating victories throughout the season, it is the performances (the process) that is more predictive than the results (the outcome).

Arsenal currently rank sixth for shots per game and shots on target per game. Their expected goals, per UnderStat, is also the sixth-best in the Premier League at 11.69. These are not terrible offensive statistics, but they are also not close to the output of Manchester City and Liverpool. Usually, that would not be so concerning, given their unrivalled quality, but when paired with the Gunners’ defensive vulnerabilities, it is a major worry. Such are the defensive deficiencies of the team, they have to have one of the very best attacks in the league just to earn draws and steal victories.

Only Aston Villa and Norwich are allowing more shots per game. Only Spurs and Norwich have made more saves per game. Arsenal rank sixth-worst for expected goals against with 12.88 and they rank bottom for interceptions per game, fourth-worst for passes blocked, fifth-worst for crosses blocked, and have more yellow cards per game than any other team — thank you Granit Xhaka and his four bookings.

All this is to say one thing: under head coach Unai Emery, who is now into his second season at the helm, Arsenal are not playing very well. They have not played well all year, even if the results suggest otherwise. And not only are they playing poorly; they are struggling in the same areas that the Arsene Wenger iterations did without the clear identity that the Frenchman instilled.

The defensive concerns that Emery was meant to alleviate have, if anything, worsened. There is still a lack of cohesive, structured pressing, the individual mistakes still haunt the backline and midfield, while the team’s play under pressure in their own defensive third puts them into extremely difficult positions, committing turnovers and conceding chances. And all of this comes without a clear style that the team is working towards.

If I were to ask you to define the key tenets of Emery’s philosophy and his tactical approach, could you actually name any? Because I am not sure I could, other than play conservatively with lumbering defensive midfielders, mistake-riddled defenders and isolated attackers.

Emery was brought to north London to improve the team, to recognise the deficiencies of the Wenegr era and to work towards addressing them. But so far, he has failed in every aspect of this. So no, everything is not right at Arsenal, even if the results say otherwise. Emery — and his players — has a whole lot of work to do.