Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WE’VE GOT OUR ARSENAL BACK
Gunners fans & players getting excited about winning streak despite Emery’s pleas for calm
UNAI EMERY’S appeals for calm will fall on deaf ears if Arsenal continue to produce football from the gods like they did against Leicester.
Three stunning team goals – the third the best that might be scored this season – earned Arsenal a 10th win in a row in all competitions.
It is a run built on football evoking memories of their greatest days under Arsene Wenger and has fans dreaming again.
No wonder there were cries of, “We’ve got our Arsenal back” from the Gunners faithful.
Arsenal started the season with two enthusiasm-sapping defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea that left many wondering exactly what had changed following Wenger’s departure and Emery’s appointment.
Seven league games and wins further on, the answers are starting to come and Alex Iwobi, one of Emery’s success stories, said: “It shows we are doing very well, that our manager has imposed a new style on us and we’re enjoying our time.
“As you can see, not just in our performances and results, we’re enjoying each other and the chemistry is good – not just the people starting but the people on the bench as well. It’s a team thing.”
The focus on Emery’s determination to play out from the back, which caused a number of selfinflicted early-season scares, has died down a little.
Especially when on more than one occasion the results have been spectacular. Pierreemerick Aubameyang’s second goal against
Leicester was a stunning 15-pass, nine-man move. The final sequence of 10 passes was started by goalkeeper Bernd Leno and ended with Aubameyang’s tap- in. It was compared to Aaron Ramsey’s effort in the 5-1 thrashing of Fulham, another superb team goal.
Emery (left) also highlighted how Aubameyang’s first goal against the Foxes was similar to Mesut Ozil’s against Watford last month, a runner released down the right to set up a tap-in for the scorer. Emery’s work on the training ground is clearly paying off. Generally the goals are flowing. Arsenal have scored at least twice in 11 of their 12 games this term, with only City shutting them out on the opening day.
And that firepower ensures they have not paid the price for the defensive deficiencies that are still apparent and will be central to Emery’s thoughts when he talks about where the team can improve.
On that front the manager hopes Nacho Monreal, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Sead Kolasinac will recover from injury to face Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League tomorrow, while Petr Cech is also fit again.
More bodies means more competition and Emery has used that to his advantage.
One of the accusations under Wenger was Arsenal were one of the most comfortable clubs to play for.
Not any more.