I said sixth at the start of the season and still think that but Emery has had to take over from a manager that also finished in the same position.
Wenger built this team and in recent seasons we had seen a culture of complacency, as well as a lack of cohesion and organisation, for which he is responsible.
He also left Emery with the worst defence I have seen at Arsenal, both in terms of personnel and organisation.
Emery looks to have changed that and we are starting to see us play with a bit more urgency and decisiveness going forward, even if the defending is just as bad.
We have already won more away games than we did all of last season and we look more direct and far better on the counter attack than we were in previous seasons.
As long as he is given the money to strengthen the defence how he wants, and get equivalent replacements for players like Ramsey and possibly Ozil, if he leaves, then we can really see what Emery can do.
If he canāt sort out the defence then we certainly shouldnāt give him the luxury of several seasons of mediocrity, like the board did with Wenger, otherwise it will see us fall even further behind all our rivals, which really is totally unacceptable.
United have tough games soon, Chelsea are much better than us now they have a real striker. 5th it is. Europa is make or break tbh. If thereās one thing Unaiās good at itās the Europa league
He looked like he had been playing with Hazard for a season. He is a good footballer and will definitely help them. It was the worst team in the league thoughā¦
United are better than Forest. No matter how bad things get now, we have one huge thing to hold onto now. All managers from now on are answerable and will get judged quicker than before.
At this stage results arenāt too important to me. I donāt care if we win or lose more away games than last season or if we eclipse our last points tally. I just want to see some kind of improvement in performance, some kind of plan. Obviously itās great to win games, but first and foremost for Emeryās first season I wanted to see some kind of philosophy implemented and so far iāve seen nothing to suggest one is being established.
I voted 4th in the poll, but not optimistic about that at all now.
Yeah well we will probably elclipse last years away wins tally by about 2, which was nearly impossible not to do, so not sure how much credit Unai should get for that.
But youāre using our away record this season as a stick to beat him with but by the same token youāre not allowing him any credit if he eclipses last seasons away record.
So in other words heās essentially doomed to criticism no matter the outcome.
If he has us challenging for the league in 2 years heās not doomed, Iāll be the first to put my hand up and say I was wrong I promise people that.
Tipping heās out the door at the end of the next season though, as I donāt think heāll be afforded the same leniency as Wenger as no sentimental value with the club given no past achievements.
Our lack of game style and the way we want to play with no identity I think is a massive indication of where this is headed, donāt care itās only 6 months in, some of these things should be noticeable by now.
No one should be getting credit for winning one third of our away games thatās my point, it was nigh on impossible to not improve on 4 away wins donāt you think ?
Pretty much agree with this but I think we are also coming to grips with the gulf in class in terms of squad quality we faceā¦ to me if we can at least show progressively more functional pressing for rest of season, that would be good start.
I think we will finish 6th because we have the quality over teams below that and they allow us time in the ball. If we are able to up a consistent tempo then we could make 4th but Iām not sure this is the season for that leap.