Arsenal can’t be what Unai Emery wants them to be

The tragedy of Unai Emery’s Arsenal could be seen when goalkeeper Petr Cech conceded a corner in the first half against Newcastle United.

Arsenal were trying to play out the back. The two center backs, Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos, were by the right touchline and on the left, respectively. Hector Bellerin was above Mustafi with the ball. Bellerin was put under pressure and passed the ball down to Mustafi. Mustafi looked for a way forward before sending the ball to Cech.

With a Newcastle forward bearing down on him, Cech immediately put the ball out for a corner with his first touch. Arsenal just had possession, and now, without advancing anywhere, had gifted Newcastle a goalscoring opportunity.

Emery’s Arsenal are experiencing one of humanity’s most universal problems: They are not yet what they want to be. There’s a tremendous gap between the ideal Arsenal under Emery, the promises and the ideas, and the reality of the team that shows up on the field.

Emery wants Arsenal to play out of the back and out-pass its opponents — not too dissimilar from the great Arsene Wenger sides, or Manchester City and Barcelona — but Arsenal have struggled to emulate that type of play. That style requires a goalkeeper that’s good with his feet and can distribute the ball all round the field — someone like Ederson or Marc-André ter Stegen. Cech is not capable of that, and can’t be expected to change in his old age.

Cech wasn’t totally at fault for the corner. The failure to adapt to Emery’s ideas is a team-wide problem. When Mustafi gets the ball from Bellerin, he waits until a defender has closed him down, until the last second possible, before passing the ball back to Cech. At that point, Newcastle has pressed up high enough that Cech would have no time or space to turn to his left and find an open man. To make matters worse, Mustafi passed the ball to Cech’s right foot, and because he’s severely left-footed and his body is facing Mustafi, the goalkeeper really had no choice but to make the safe decision.

Arsenal’s general defensive ineptitude is also seen when they don’t have the ball.

Emery wants Arsenal to play a high-pressing game. That pressure requires the defense play a high line in order to condense the space available to their opponents, and the workspace where the ball can be won back. That idea can work if the defenders are tactically astute and/or fast. Arsenal’s current center backs, Mustafi and Papastathopoulos, are not either of those things.

Arsenal’s midfield is equally frustrating. The solution to its problems is readily available, however. Yet Emery, who has admitted to the effectiveness of said solution, refuses to make the permanent change that is necessary.

Arsenal had a midfield of Mattéo Guendouzi, Granit Xhaka, and Aaron Ramsey against Newcastle. The same midfield started against Manchester City, West Ham, and Cardiff. Ramsey was on the bench against Chelsea, but the other two started once again.

Meanwhile, Lucas Torreira, Arsenal’s most expensive signing in the summer, has been coming on in every game after halftime to replace either Xhaka or Guendouzi. That’s because by the end of the first half of every one of those games, it was painfully clear Xhaka and Guendouzi can’t be paired together.

Xhaka is a great passer and can break lines to help push the team forward, and Guendouzi, though still very young, is good at controlling the game and distributing the ball. But both have the same weaknesses: a lack of positional sense, and an inability to win the ball back when Arsenal loses possession. They are also not the most athletic pair, so they can easily be overrun by more athletic midfields, or passed around by those more technically gifted. The Premier League is full of midfields like that. Even Newcastle’s was too much for the two to handle.

Torreira is good at winning the ball back. He has a good positional sense. He can move the ball forward by driving or passing. And he can do all that without forgetting his defensive duties. He can cover for both Xhaka and Guendouzi’s weaknesses. He gives the team a sense of calm when he’s on the field.

Emery even stated that the balance Torreira provides was the reason why he brought him on at halftime against Newcastle:

“I am very happy with Matteo and also very happy with Lucas. But maybe in the second half we needed a little more balance on the pitch with the positioning. Lucas gives us this balance.”

So, the solution to Arsenal’s midfield is known and acknowledged, yet it’s only put into play when the situation is dire, rather than implemented from the start of the match. Arsenal’s official Twitter account even celebrates this very obvious thing. Emery’s idea to play Xhaka and Guendouzi in tandem is great. In theory, the two should be able to control the tempo of the game and get the ball forward with incisive passes. But their weaknesses are too glaring and easily manipulated when they’re together for that idea to work. Once again, Arsenal isn’t quite ready for what Emery would like the team to do.

Arsenal’s attack suffered a similar problem as the midfield in the first few games. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whose greatest strength is his speed, was starting at striker, with Mesut Ozil to his right and Henrikh Mkhitaryan to his left. The idea was to have the two creative midfielders send passes to Aubameyang, who could make runs off the shoulder of the last defender.

That would work if Arsenal were more direct, but Arsenal likes to pass the ball around now, which means the forward has to be able to hold the ball up and create chances for others as well. When Aubameyang played that role, the attack struggled. But when Alexandre Lacazette, who has those ball-holding qualities, was brought in and Aubameyang was moved out to the left wing, the attack flourished. The two of them complement each other so well that there are already videos being uploaded to celebrate their partnership:

Changes in midfield and attack can help, but won’t completely fix Arsenal. Emery is in a precarious position to begin with. He’s the first manager to take over the club after a legendary manager left, and managers like that are usually transitional stewards. His unspoken objective is to usher the club away from the ideas and influence of Wenger.

The club and its players are often so accustomed and loyal to the old manager that seamless change is difficult, if not impossible, with the first new manager. Emery has to try to change the culture and playing style of the team, and do so while also getting those players to buy in. Some of them will inevitably push back on or outright reject his ideas. A change that drastic almost has to have bumps.

Emery is also being judged by the myth of Wenger rather than the reality of what existed before — all the great things about Wenger, rather than the worst. Wenger, for all of his faults, could make even the worst Arsenal teams look capable. It was only in the last few years that his powers waned. And after the first two losses in the season, Emery was faced with the fact that none of Wenger’s teams had ever started the season with three losses. Had Arsenal not beaten West Ham, he would have been a historically disappointing appointment just three games in.

There will no doubt be more chances for fans to make unfavorable comparisons against Emery. That’s the pressure he lives under as the transitional manager.

To make matters worse, Emery is trying to rebuild Arsenal while the other big clubs are solidified in their identity. Most of them have continuity, and in the case of Chelsea, who have also changed managers, there’s at least a strong core of players who can stabilize the club as they take on a new form. Arsenal, along with a new manager, have five new players.

It will take time for Emery’s Arsenal to get closer to his ideal for them. The hope is Emery can somehow shortcut that time span for change and get Arsenal back into the Champions League in the process.

But the truth is he’s also doing an impossible job, a job in which the conditions make it difficult to actually achieve anything in the few years he will be at the club. More than anything, he’s being asked to keep the team steady before it can finally and completely break free of Wenger’s influence.