EMERY: I HAM ON THE CASE
UNAI EMERY admits life will not get any easier for Arsenal this coming weekend when they face West Ham.
Emery became the first Arsenal boss to lose his first two matches in charge since Steve Burtenshaw, who suffered defeat in his first three games as caretaker in 1986.
And he says the Gunners can’t take Saturday’s visit of the Hammers lightly, despite the fact the east Londoners have let in six goals in two games and are yet to score from open play.
Emery, whose side looked every bit as bad at the back against Chelsea as they did in losing to Manchester City, said: “It is clear that the demand is very high and also that the two first matches are very difficult, but next week is also the same.
“We will prepare how we prepared for Manchester City and Chelsea and continue to improve things. Our performances are getting better.
Misses
“We will continue our process with the players, with the young players, also for our system to do better on the pitch. Against Chelsea we did very good things on the pitch.”
But for big misses by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alex Iwobi, the Gunners could have had a hatful in this game.
Yet they still have a lot to work on defensively after being torn apart time and again by a Chelsea passing machine marshalled by the superb Jorginho. Arsenal are already six points behind some of their biggest rivals, but Emery insists that there is plenty of time to turn things around.
He said: “There are 38 matches in the Premier League in a season and we are going to play every team.
“Our start isn’t easy and we have nil points but we are thinking about the next match and we are also thinking about work and how tactically we need to improve.
“We can improve more things. But we are doing many things positively, and we are going to continue to do that.
“It is clear the two results are not good but it is clear the quality of spirit is good. We reacted well to going two goals down and we created chances to score, that is also positive.
“We need to continue to work on the balance between attacking moments and defensive moments.”