Arsenal: What’s the point of improving if you get in your own way?

Arsenal had the opportunity to do the right thing with their defensive situation and Unai Emery willingly chose not to. Get out of your own way!

I’m going to paint a picture for you and you’re going to fill in the missing pieces. It’s like a “What’s missing?” puzzle, Arsenal style.

So there’s this horrible defense right here, you see it? Good. And this defense has been flawed for the better part of half a decade. The centerback pairing never works, the fullbacks aren’t versatile enough. it’s a real mess.

In steps this new manager, you see him? He has the chance to change that bad part. So he spends money and brings up youth products that are the right fit to fix the team. But they’re mostly hurt. So we stick through it, we stick through it, and finally, just when the defense is about to completely collapses, everyone is healthy.

Now, as sensible people, what would you do next? Would you leave the same crumbling defense in their to crumble longer, or would you replace that crumbling defense with the defense you actually wanted?

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99 out of 100 people would choose to do the latter. But that one person who didn’t choose the latter is Unai Emery.

After an international break and constant proof that Rob Holding and Kieran Tierney were ready for action, Emery still left Sokratis and Sead Kolasinac in the match, only to find out that they were, in fact, still Sokratis and Sead Kolasinac.

I do not and will never understand the motivation here. Was it to give them one last chance to prove themselves? Was it to remember why you have these other options in the first place? I’m honestly asking, because I don’t know. There is no logical reason why Emery would choose mistake-ridden Sokratis over a much younger, superior Rob Holding.

There is equally no reason why you would start a notably flawed Sead Kolasinac when Kieran Tierney is itching to get his time to shine. No reason at all. Start the better defense. Do you really need to be convinced that they’re the better defense? Because if so we need to start asking some other, more important questions.

This was such a disappointing result, and it’s just like the kind of disappointing results we suffered last year. If you are going to improve as a team you have to get out of your own way.