I’d take average back there for now. I think he’d provide better protection along with Lucas.
Used to think Elneny lacked an identity. You didn’t know what he was. DM, CM, CAM(lol)?After Coquelin left he really pulled some great performances as a DM though. Saved us a couple of times. Dunno if I consider him a starter but since Emery wants to give everyone a fair chance, he might as well try out Elneny too. He is our #4 as well. 
I don’t really disagree with you, I don’t think he’s a world beater and he’s woeful at making forward line penetrating passes. Still he’d be a giant upgrade on Xhaka tho.
Xhaka has a better long ball, truth be told. Short passing I would call it a fair game but Elneny definitely better defensively, faster and can use his strength better.
I’m surprised by Auba’s struggles this season, can’t say I’m surprised about our defence though.
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I have to admit, I am worried after watching yesterday’s performance. I know WestHam spent 100 million this summer and that this was a derby but this game was far too even for my liking, given the quality (on paper) that we have in our squad. What worries me is that WestHam could have, and perhaps should have, won that game given the number of chances they created against our non existent defence.
If we defend like that, the next few so called winnable fixtures will be anything but. I mean, it’s okay to play such open football if we are scoring tons of goals at the other end like Liverpool were doing for the last couple of seasons but we are not. So I don’t understand the defensive strategy here. Why play a high line with defenders like Mustafi and Sokratis who clearly don’t like running towards their goal, aren’t very good in one on one situations, and tend to dive in with a tackle more often than not. Then we play Xhaka and Guendouzi who are more attack minded and leave our CBs way too exposed. It’s only poor finishing from WestHam that gave us the win yesterday.
IMO, while Unai is trying to implement a new philosophy here and it will take time for things to fall into place, he has to be mindful of the results as well. It’s okay if we lose a few here and there against the lesser teams because that is bound to happen in the premier league anyway but if we continue to defend like we did yesterday, I feel we will lose/draw way more than we will win. I know we have some crappy defenders but we can still do a lot better job that we did yesterday and I am hoping Unai gets down to doing that sooner rather than later.
I have to say, I expected more from this game.
Whilst Bellerin offers us a really good outlet up top, being exploited by the likes of West Ham should raise alarm bells. The way Mhki shuffles inside creates a massive space on that right side too. When the ball is turned over up the field, we’re left with two CB’s that can’t deal with pressure on the back foot.
I’d like our FB’s to pick their moments in games. That first half lacked any form of composure; poor ball retention, erratic forward play, outplayed in the buildup from midfield and FB’s committing suicide in the name of offensive play. We looked much more composed in the second half, which is odd because I think that’s three games in a row now?
I expect to see some more tinkering in midfield still. Elneny is an odd one. Whispers towards the end of the window suggested that he is surplus to requirements at Arsenal, so I’m not sure we’ll see much of him, yet. I really feel Torreira needs a full game.
Auba really needs goals right now, I thought this game would provide the platform for that 
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Generally this was your standard kamikaze messy Arsenal performance where we’ve basically accepted an end-to-end game from the outset.
Positionally we were diabolical and even during moments we won the ball our possession play was still poor.
We leave far too much work for our centre backs to do and it always looks like they’re three times as bad as they really are.
Bellerin as we know, struggles to find that balance in his game of when to commit forward but also when to hold a position where he can sense danger and get back to cover the gaps behind him when we get countered. He leaves us stretched and unprepared. Either Emery helps him find that balance or Lichtsteiner takes the spot.
We wanted our full backs to bomb forward, okay sound. But then for that, Xhaka and Guendouzi were WAY too far up the pitch leaving the centre backs completely isolated on every West Ham counter. I know we want to press up the pitch but this was overkill.
This left the central midfielders in a situation where a) they weren’t accessible enough as potential options for players on the ball, and b) they weren’t allowing themselves to get back into a defensive position once turnovers happened.
Xhaka in particular at the base of midfield should have been at least a good 20 yards deeper during the course of the game.
I worry about this team when we can be this disorganised upon the arrival of an organised manager. It will obviously take the season to get this sorted but the likes of Xhaka and Bellerin are honestly stupid on a tactical level.
The key reason Elneny gets touted as a base of midfield of option is that he’s simply not a fucking moron on a positional side of things and actually performs the basics of a deep midfield role.
Elneny, Torreira and Ramsey should be our midfield three hands down in my opinion. Emery has to play a big role here in getting them organised but at least those players are capable of understanding it.
Özil on his return would be much better served on the left for us. Creatively could work wonders throughout that channel and allow Ramsey the license to get into the box late.
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I think this pretty much describes what out main problem is.
I was under the impression that Emery was going to sort out the shambolic approach we had to defending that Wenger had.
Instead, it’s possibly worse.
Like you say, how many times our CB’s left without proper cover?
It wouldn’t be so bad if we had Van Dijk and Vertonghen as our CB partnership, but we don’t.
We have two CB’s that are just not good enough for a team challenging for a top four place.
We looked ok going forward, and we looked a lot better when Torreira was on the pitch, but defensively it is chaotic at best.
Ironically, this was imo probably the worst performance of the three games so far
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I agree.
Considering we were away to Chelsea, I think that has been our best performance, certainly in the second half against them.
This game probably more than the other 2 let us know how big our task is now. Seems the tactics and how to implement them on match day properly are going too take a long time. Think most had accepted that before we kicked a ball tbf. However the breakdown in understanding and communication at the back is very alarming.
Thankfully the next few fixtures are games our better attacking players should give us even chances of winning or drawing with our ragged defence.
Where off the mark and that will do now till Cardiff. A win there would be good going to the international break.
That’s the thing though, maybe I’m stupid but I’m not really seeing them. Apart from trying to play it out from the back and maybe more attempts at pressing, I can’t really see a great deal that is “Emery is trying to achieve X and the players have not adjusted to it yet”, it just looks like the general disorder that we’re used to.
I can’t say I watched enough of Sevilla and PSG to get a real grasp of everything he was about, but the impression I got was that he likes fullbacks to push on and likes to have one or two boring midfielders that kept things reasonably tight and that’s where the organisation begins from, but starting Xhaka and Guendouzi there for 3 out of 3 games, I’m not really sure what it’s trying to achieve other than some false sense of being a passing team. You don’t need to be a passing team to attack, you can still be an offensive team that throws its fullbacks forward but still has a midfielder with an eye on protecting our goal.
I think it’s inevitable that Torreira will be starting at some stage in the next 4 weeks and after that happens I think we’ll start to look a lot more solid instantly.
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I think this may have some truth to it which may mean Emery hasn’t got the force of personality to effect his own ideas here. It’s early days so we’ll see
Agree with all that tbf and it remains to be seen if its down to what we maybe dont have. Will admit though I did not see our defence being almost more fragile than ev er so far under him.
It needs sorting quickly as theres no progress to be made inviting teams into acres of room.
Dear god, back to the Wenger years on saturday! Can’t believe we won a game we should have lost 5-1 in the first half. WTF did we do at the back? That was a massive stepback compared with the first 2 games. We only improved with Laca on. It’s time for him to start.
Rant incoming in 3… 2… 1…
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Same fuckin’ high line with 2 CB;s who can’t play it and everyone else is bombing forward. We don’t press, we don’t sit back… we’re perpetually caught in limbo with maybe one person committed to breaking up play and everyone else standing around with their thumbs up their ass (yes, both).
Cech’s bumbling ass is going to cost a goal soon. If you wanted a starting keeper who was good in possession you should have bought one… Still not sure if Cech is a Jabroni or not.
Next time a FB assists another FB for a goal I will punch a motherfuckin’ kitten in the face (yes, I know it wasn’t an assist, but close enough).
When you have 2 natural, talented, goal scoring CF and no natural wingers… by Pan’s furry balls, why would you play 4-2-3-1?
…end rant
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People overreacting a little bit. This was against WHU. From my rewatching they had 2 great chances… that’s it. Neither they scored on. Arnautovic goal was a comPlete joke defending. 2 attackers vs 5 defenders and we fail to block.
We had 2 great chances as well, and more half chances. Seriously, I watched the entire game again and rated every threatening situation for both teams. We were all over the shop on defense and especially on counters, our biggest issue by far defensively atm, but we could have scored more too.
Fabianski had some phenomenal saves and some better decisions on our part and we score more easily. Can’t apply the “what if” for one team and not the other.
We will score goals. Our issue is defense and counters… BIG problems, but after cataloging all chances I didn’t change my conclusion we were deserved winner.
Too bad we have idiots for defenders though. Zero chance of top 4 for me. They look like frauds atm.
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There are some video profiles on Emery if you search on Youtube. Emery’s attitude is very similar to Arsene. Very attacking, to the point that the defence was lacking due to it. Very evident in the way he got out twice with PSG. Difference probably is that Emery who is Spanish follows the modern Spanish approach of playing fast with no unnecessary holding of the ball(unlike Arsene who liked commanding the game and trying to slow things down at times)and obviously building from the back. Probably the reason why I’m worried still about our defensive state, unless we sign better players there. Torreira is a step to the right direction as we finally have a proper DM. Btw, that’s not say Unai won’t change his way but so far it seems that he is keeping it old school. PL competitiveness may force him to adjust his tactics.
Lol I never even noticed this on Saturday. That look from Masuaku!
At least we know Emery can be a dickhead
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