Unai Emery

[AlexAlexCropley]

Two games - but the same shambolic performances as manure and palace in the cup.

I wonder who we got next...

Palace

[Villan82]

The start of the Emery era were marked by three things

Starting brightly and getting early goals
Playing with energy and incisive passing
Playing with no fear

The first game against Man U set the tone immediately. Two early goals and we just kept doing it for what seemed a year and a half. By December 2023 we were running rings around a Man City side deemed one of the best in the world. Since the second half of 2023-24 it has become a bit slower and more cautious culminating in how we handled the end of last season and the beginning of this season.

I don't buy the idea that this is his style as we saw consistently and with success that he can set the team up to attack and score a tonne of goals. Funny enough since Morgan Rogers came into the team a lot of the play started going through him. A lot seemed to change when the prize of things like finishing 4th, or getting to a cup final came into view.

Not sure what I am trying to say but we sort of stopped doing the things that got us into a great position in the first place

[pauliewalnuts]

The problem is we look stale.

We need new bodies in, and we also need to start using some of the more recent additions more often (if we are that screwed by PSR then why did we spunk so much on Malen only to seem to be allergic to using him other than the odd cameo?).

[London Villan]

But if you don’t pick the attacking players you have that doesn’t help either.

[Dave]

We need new bodies in, and we also need to start using some of the more recent additions more often (if we are that screwed by PSR then why did we spunk so much on Malen only to seem to be allergic to using him other than the odd cameo?).

Yup. I'd feel a lot more sympathetic to the "the establishment won't let us spend money" wailings if we hadn't tied up £50m a few months ago in a guy to help put out training cones.

[ChicagoLion]

The start of the Emery era were marked by three things

Starting brightly and getting early goals
Playing with energy and incisive passing
Playing with no fear

The first game against Man U set the tone immediately. Two early goals and we just kept doing it for what seemed a year and a half. By December 2023 we were running rings around a Man City side deemed one of the best in the world. Since the second half of 2023-24 it has become a bit slower and more cautious culminating in how we handled the end of last season and the beginning of this season.

I don't buy the idea that this is his style as we saw consistently and with success that he can set the team up to attack and score a tonne of goals. Funny enough since Morgan Rogers came into the team a lot of the play started going through him. A lot seemed to change when the prize of things like finishing 4th, or getting to a cup final came into view.

Not sure what I am trying to say but we sort of stopped doing the things that got us into a great position in the first place

The only reason I can think of for the total change in style was trying to spread a thin squad across too many games.
Ponderous  and lethargic has replaced pace and dynamism.

[Walmley_Villa]

Feels as if Unai only trusts a certain group and worryingly not the players recently brought in like Malen.
Next Sunday will be telling as we have really struggled against a 3-4-3 with Unai seemingly having no answer. Where has his imagination gone? I remember when we beat the Geordies a couple of seasons ago by basically knocking it long over their press and it worked a treat.

Insanity is doing the same again with the same bad results.

[Monty]

Feels as if Unai only trusts a certain group and worryingly not the players recently brought in like Malden.

This poor bastard. Can't get a start, can't even get a stable surname.

[Walmley_Villa]

Effing autocorrect!

[achilles]

Basically Unai needs to stop over analysing everything and just take a step back! He doesn’t need to micro manage the players, have confidence in the players that he puts out on the field to adapt to what is happening on the pitch.  It is extremely worrying that Unai learnt nothing from the Newcastle game to put out a week later virtually the same side except to play two LF centre halves which made the side even worse!

I don’t understand this obsession with the transfer window as he does not play the players that are signed anyway, unless established players are on their way out?

The side is good enough if the players are played in their natural positions! Rogers is a number 10, not a left or right winger! Tielemans is NOT a number 10 but will create chances for players in front of him. Malen and Guessand are naturally wide players so play them and stop pissing Malen about either play him or sell him! 

I think the Everton match away is the pivotal game for Unai as all excuses will be void by then. Accept that we will lose to Crystal Palace as we can’t cope with them at all so 1 point by the time of the Everton game after 3 games!

[Clampy]

I dont think we need to tell someone as successful as Emery  how to manage players. He's one of the best in the world world at it.

[PaulWinch again]

We need new bodies in, and we also need to start using some of the more recent additions more often (if we are that screwed by PSR then why did we spunk so much on Malen only to seem to be allergic to using him other than the odd cameo?).

Yup. I'd feel a lot more sympathetic to the "the establishment won't let us spend money" wailings if we hadn't tied up £50m a few months ago in a guy to help put out training cones.

Yup we’re taking an odd approach to transfers given out apparent restrictions.

[SoccerHQ]

The problem is we look stale.

We need new bodies in, and we also need to start using some of the more recent additions more often (if we are that screwed by PSR then why did we spunk so much on Malen only to seem to be allergic to using him other than the odd cameo?).

This season reminds me of summer 2010.

Obviously no manager flouncing out during season (yet) but we only signed Ireland that summer who turned out to be a disaster signing. And losing Milner left a huge void centrally.

Still had likes of Friedel, Young, Downing, Gabby and Carew starting regularly but you could tell a couple of those were past their best and we look a far weaker sums of our parts 11 than previous years when most would've described us as effective counter attack team.

In 10/11 we couldn't counter much and wanted to play a far more slow paced control game and the results suffered and the same is happening again.

We played some magnificent football for the whole of 2023 and perhaps it's never going to be as good as that again under Unai but now it is sad to see us set up so often just to get to 0-0 at half time. That is something Bruce or Pulis would do and we still have quality on the pitch to impose ourselves on the opposition.

Hard to see us doing much in the league given how little we've created from open play so we either pull out two amazing signings in last week of the window which seems optimistic or we give more chances to existing players.

They'll be more of a buzz around VP at kick off next weekend if people see Malen AND Guessand both starting the game as it will be something different to how we've approached in the last few months. It might even work, imagine that.

[ChicagoLion]

The wheels haven't come off at all.

Maybe a career as a quick fit fitter is not really for you.

[astonvilla82]

Need to start kicking a few up the arse and stop being nice