Arsenal: Can Mikel Arteta succeed where Unai Emery failed?
Mikel Arteta now takes his Arsenal team on a kind run of fixtures in which they can stack up victories. This is where Unai Emery failed. Can he now succeed in the same arena?
Unai Emery did not fail as Arsenal head coach because he could not prepare his team to play in the big matches. In fact, his one-off tactical displays were often masterful, setting his team up to stem the quality of the opposition and attack specific weaknesses. His substitutions were excellent and his know-how to win that specific match was clear to see.
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His superiority in this department is why he has had such strong success in the cup competitions. These are often straight knockout matches or two-legged ties. Being consistent is not as important as hitting your peak for specific games, and Emery is excellent and building a team for the latter.
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No, Emery’s failures came in the mundane, run-of-the-mill matches in the regular Premier League season. His lack of tactical identity meant that his team was unable to impose their will on the opposition. They were always adapting, so when it came to facing lesser opponents in games in which the onus was on them to dictate and create, the Emeryian Arsenal fell drastically short. In the two months leading up to Emery’s sacking, they lost to Eintracht Frankfurt and Sheffield United and drew with Southampton, Wolves, Crystal Palace and Vitoria SC.
Emery was sacked because he lacked tactical identity. This meant his team was often confused when it came to producing consistently excellent performances at a high level against lesser teams. But in the opening period of Mikel Arteta’s tenure, if there is anything that can be said of his management style and overall tactical approach, it is that he has a very defined and certain identity.
Even when he has had to play players far out of their natural position, including the clumbersome Sokratis at right-back, Arteta has never once deviated from the slanted 4-2-3-1 that features many clever and progressive tactical idiosyncracies that are helping the team to tick. He has a set way of playing, and he expects his players to execute it at a high enough level to reel off victories.
As the season enters its closing stages and the top-four race hots up, — Arsenal, staggeringly, are not entirely out of it just yet — Arteta leads his team into a run of favourable fixtures. Over their next six Premier League matches, the Gunners face only one team currently sat in the top half of the standings, and that is Everton. They face two of the bottom three — Norwich City and West Ham United — and also play Newcastle United, Brighton and Hove Albion, and Southampton.
As Emery proved, and as the rest of the top six bar Liverpool and Manchester City are illustrating seemingly every week, no Premier League game is easy and a victory should never be agiven. But this is a kind run of fixtures that provides Arteta with the chance to string a run of results together that Emery never could.
It was these periods of the schedule that were the undoing for Emery, his tinkering getting the best of him when he needed to stay consistent and define his team. Arteta will now get the chance to right his predecessor’s wrongs, but can he succeed in the arena that Emery failed?