Unai Emery

[SaddVillan]

In amongst all the xG, gials scored from insude/outside the box, surely, the perfect season would be:

P 38
W 38
D 0
L 0
F 38
A 0
Pts 114

[andyh]

Just watched his pre Brighton press conference.
I just love Unai Emery ❤️

[mrfuse]

It’s a bit more nuanced than that though - at least from my perspective - we’ve clearly tightened up which is very welcome and hopefully sustainable. But as a result we’re not as relentless in attack. Now at the moment it’s ok because we’re balancing it out with loads of goals outside the box - they look brilliant and are really welcome, but clearly the odds are we’re not going to keep scoring that volume of long range goals. So to sustain our attacking output, we need to start producing and finishing more chances in the box. That’s all it is.

Why can’t we keep scoring goals like that? We’ve got the quality and the players to do it. If the opposition tries to press us higher and close us down quickly, it just creates more space and more options for us. We don’t play a relentless style, and missing chances isn’t the real issue—as long as we’re creating them, we’re fine. The real problem comes when the chances dry up, not when we’re still getting opportunities but failing to convert. I trust Emery to make adjustments when needed, but he clearly believes in the players’ ability to score from distance, and so do I.

We shouldn’t be worrying about what happens if that approach stops working. Instead, we should be thinking positively about how we can keep creating more long-range opportunities when teams choose to sit deep against us.