Emery finds it hard to put case for Gunners defence

LONDON: Arsenal manager Unai Emery was happy with his team's attacking play after Tuesday's 4-1 victory over Fulham but admitted their defending has plenty of room for improvement.

The score suggests a straightforward win against a Fulham team who performed as poorly on the road as they usually do but it was exactly what Emery's men needed to restore confidence after their 5-1 thrashing by Liverpool.

But Emery knew the score did not tell the whole story.

Ryan Sessegnon missed two good chances to give the visitors the lead in the first 20 minutes and had either gone in, Arsenal's resolve would have been sorely tested.

Instead, typically slack Fulham defending allowed the unmarked Granit Xhaka to score from Alex Iwobi's measured cross after 25 minutes, and Arsenal were rarely troubled after that.

"Our challenge now is to improve defensively," Emery admitted. "Today was the first time we could play with Sokratis, (Skhodran) Mustafi and (Laurent) Koscielny.

"We are very happy with the attacking players, scoring lots of goals like today.

"But we need more balance defensively, we need to work, to prepare for the second half of the season and we need to do better tactically and we are going to."

His three-man defence, though, was disrupted by a hamstring injury that forced Mustafi off the field at half-time.

Rather than replace him with Stephan Lichtsteiner, Emery changed formation and went to a back four, which suggests the search for balance is both tactical and one of personnel.