Unai Emery

[KevinGage]

He started well Gerrard. Easier run than Emery though. Emery keeps saying it is about maintaining it when the shiny new manager bounce wears off though, so I think he's a bit better prepared than Steven was for the dip.

Gerrard/ Beale looked like they had hit on something early doors with three narrow central midfielders. That shake up -with Marv in the central role - was a big part of those early results.

Having seen what worked, they decided not to play that way again in the second half of the season; with McGinn instead playing as auxillary full-back as Cash and Digne bombed forward and Coutinho - apart from Leeds away and Soton at home - doing a Westwood.

[paul_e]

https://twitter.com/OP4C/status/1617831529513897985?s=20&t=3_ox2wNzbl3NhpmotEahmA

Watch that, from the Southampton match.

He has us playing some seriously good football. My first thought watching it was how much difference a cool head up front would make.

Some great play in there but what it really highlights is how big a part Luiz plays in everything good we do. The first move on there he has 3 touches but all 3 he opens up the play. The only bit it doesn't show is a little bit of skill he did in the 2nd half where took a touch with his right and passed with his left in a fraction of a second to get out of trouble, the commentator mentioned it as quick feet but it's the sort of thing that if someone like De Bruyne or Messi did it we'd have been seeing it all over the place.

[Nev]

It feels like there is more depth to Emery and what he does. Indeed he's changed tactics more in a couple of months than the previous Manager did in 12 months. Therein lay the problem, Gerrard was wedded to his beliefs and his enormous ego stopped him from changing, reliant on "a bit of magic" from one of the players rather than being pro-active. Add to that his bizarre utterances and that's where the fans started to lose faith.

Emery comes over as humble, says all the right things as far as the fans are concerned and has an air of someone constantly analysing both the game in front of him and the players at his disposal. Undoubtedly there will be a bad run, and it will be interesting to see how he handles it and gets us out of it but at the moment I would say the fans have confidence in him.

[paul_e]

It feels like there is more depth to Emery and what he does. Indeed he's changed tactics more in a couple of months than the previous Manager did in 12 months. Therein lay the problem, Gerrard was wedded to his beliefs and his enormous ego stopped him from changing, reliant on "a bit of magic" from one of the players rather than being pro-active. Add to that his bizarre utterances and that's where the fans started to lose faith.

Emery comes over as humble, says all the right things as far as the fans are concerned and has an air of someone constantly analysing both the game in front of him and the players at his disposal. Undoubtedly there will be a bad run, and it will be interesting to see how he handles it and gets us out of it but at the moment I would say the fans have confidence in him.

I don't quite agree. I think Gerrard came in with a tactic that had worked in scotland but between him and Beale they realised it wasn't going to work in England. We then changed to a more defensive shape with the idea of seeing out the season and then buying players we could use to 'go again'. The problem was that Gerrard "doesn't do tactics" and Beale left before we had chance to develop a new style. Critchley replaced him but was totally out of his depth so the 'get by until the summer' gameplan was all we had to take into the season.

If Beale had stayed I suspect we'd still have the 2 of them and we'd be about where we are now but without the run of 16 from 21 and with less prospects to push up into the top half.

[London Villan]

He's got the most out of what he has got and let's be honest our squad is in the top 50 in world football (probably higher in terms of actual spend) so there is the potential to get more out them. That's the difference between a manager with 900 top-level games under his belt vs a rookie with just over 100.

He's clearing the deadwood and players that don't fit his system and with 19 games to go we probably need about 20 first-team quality players - if we are lucky with injuries.

[eamonn]

20 first team quality players required? The same as Everton and Southampton then...great...

[GordonCowansisthegreatest]

20 total, not 20 new players!! I would think he means.

[paul_e]

20 total, not 20 new players!! I would think he means.

20 is the minimum because that's how many you can pick in a matchday squad. Add 1 for a 3rd keeper and I'd say the minimum size for the first team squad is 21. With us having a fair few decent youngsters I'd be happy with us going down near that sort of level, we certainly shouldn't have over 21s that we can't use.

[SamTheMouse]

We need a forward and winger, we all know that, but it's because the squad is very thin in those areas, not because we're desperate to add more goals to the team.

In the absence of CD, I feel I have a duty to point out that we need loads of wingers. Like half a dozen at least. Maybe more. Preferably bums-off-seats, tricky ones who run really quick.

[London Villan]

Yes 20 first team quality in total, not 20 new players in the transfer window.

[LeeB]

Yes 20 first team quality in total, not 20 new players in the transfer window.

Yeah, we're not Forest.

[Risso]

Yes 20 first team quality in total, not 20 new players in the transfer window.

Yeah, we're not Forest.

Or Chelsea.

[paul_e]

We need a forward and winger, we all know that, but it's because the squad is very thin in those areas, not because we're desperate to add more goals to the team.

In the absence of CD, I feel I have a duty to point out that we need loads of wingers. Like half a dozen at least. Maybe more. Preferably bums-off-seats, tricky ones who run really quick.

I know CD likes a few of those but in the shape we're playing we only really need 2 and Bailey counts for one.

[Smithy]

Yes 20 first team quality in total, not 20 new players in the transfer window.

Yeah, we're not Forest.

Or Chelsea.

I know Chelsea have been big spenders this year, but I didn't realise quite how much. I saw this morning they've spent £460m on 14 new players since the summer. It's bonkers. Two of those are loans (that still cost £15m).

That's to improve a side that finished third.

[LeeB]

Yes 20 first team quality in total, not 20 new players in the transfer window.

Yeah, we're not Forest.

Or Chelsea.

I know Chelsea have been big spenders this year, but I didn't realise quite how much. I saw this morning they've spent £460m on 14 new players since the summer. It's bonkers. Two of those are loans (that still cost £15m).

That's to improve a side that finished third.

With a stadium smaller than ours