Unai Emery’s arrival this summer has already made the fans and the critics talk about the decisive changes he has made since he replaced Arsene Wenger in the summer and now Germany Internation Shkodran Mustafi has gone on to explain how the Unai Emery era is different from the previous one.
Former manager Arsene Wenger left the club after a successful 22-year reign in the English premier league, winning the league 3 times and the FA cup 7 times having also won the golden premier league trophy after going unbeaten the whole season of 2003-04.
And The man who has come in to replace has has previously spoken about how he would like to play the game style similar to his country man Pep Guardiola focusing on more ball possession and defensive prowess and relentless energy on the field
Unai Emery joined the North-London side from the French side PSG (Paris-Saint Germain) to help the North London side win the coveted Premier league for the first time since 2003-04 and Arsenal defender Shkodran Mustafi believes that the gunners are heading in the right direction under the tutelage of their present head coach saying :
“He really knows what he wants to do, how he wants to play,” Mustafi said.
“He’s not someone who is trying to change everything to show ‘this is my club now, my rules’.
“Most of the time it is little details, one or two metres that he wants you to move on the left and the right.
“It’s important because in games like today, most of the time details decide games.
“In the weeks he has been here, he has already changed a lot.”
Emery’s side has arguably seen off the gunners toughest two games of the season; beaten at home to the defending champions Manchester city and then going down to their north-London rivals Chelsea 3-2 in an enthralling match at the Stamford Bridge.
Prior to the match at Chelsea, Shkodran Mustafi said he believes in Unai Emery making small and decisive changes in contradiction to Arsene’s game style.
After the 3-2 loss at Stamford Bridge, Unai Emery said
“We spoke before the match about the need to improve and to be competitive. I think today the team after going 2-0, the reaction was very good.
We created more chances to score, 2-2 was maybe too short for us.”
This in fairness shows a positive outlook from the Spaniard who would like to get more and more support from the fans get them to rally behind the players after replacing their previous manager after their worst league finish in two decades.
Shkodran Mustafi, the German international and Arsenal’s present first choice centre back, believes that Unai Emery’s game-style will bring about a positive change in their campaign to secure the league and its easy to see from our perspective why.
However, despite Shkodran Mustafi statements club legend Martin Keown thinks that the players are not listening and reacting to the new boss and expresses concern over it.
“It’s about giving the message to the players and them reacting.
In these results he has not been able to do that. They are not taking on board the messages he is giving them”, he said.
The gunners having lost their first two matches to City and rivals Chelsea, means this is their worst start to the new campaign since 1992. However in Unai Emery’s defence, they played two of the toughest teams in the premier league.
Having shown flair and competitiveness in their first match against Manchester City and the will to fight back at Chelsea shows that Unai Emery has a few cards up his sleeve to help Arsenal make a top 3 finish. Without champions league, arsenal will have more time to focus on the league.
Unai Emery has shown that he will need top performance and commitment from his players because he will depend heavily on the substitutes, having made all 6 substitutions against City and Chelsea including the previously unthinkable ones like substituting Ozil and taking off Xhaka at half time, it easy to understand that everyone is dispensable unless they are pulling their weight in the team and giving it all out there on the pitch.
In conclusion, Unai Emery needs more time with this explosive Arsenal team and with the likes of Pierre-Emrick Aubameyang , Mesut Ozil , Aaron Ramsey and many more players, they can well enough dominate the Premier League.
The only thing that seems to stop this Arsenal side from winning is their defensive abilities, having conceded 5 goals in the first two matches and this is something which had actively caused their downfall last season around also.
With Laurent Koscielny side-lined for 6 months, the club and the fans are highly depending on Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos for taking over the defensive duties and providing the bedrock for their optimistic title challenge this season so his comments about how much he appreciates the changes in the tactical approach to the games will sooner rather than latter definitely reflect on the teams performances and till then what this club and the players need is the fans uniting behind this new era and giving it the push that it so desperately needs now.
