The Unai Emery Thread | Page 222 | Vital Football

The Unai Emery Thread

Watching the highlights I actually just think it was all wrong, despite us being the more dangerous side in the first half. As pointed out by other posters there was no midfield, the spaces between players were just too vast, this made life easier for Spurs. Also the extra man in defence made our offside trap a lot worse because there's simply more players who have to co-ordinate it, therefore it was easier to get wrong, and the first goal was a direct consequence of this.

I'd love to know what Emery's thinking was. Did he really think that we had to show Spurs more respect than what we did to Arsenal and Man City or does he see that our players are not in the best condition to play like we usually do?

From the outside it looks like Emery just got things badly wrong.
 
He's reverted to Bruce-ball tactics that include a defensive-minded don't lose at any cost, long balls aimlessly pumped up to a single striker who is continuously bullied by centre backs and leaving gaping holes all over the pitch as the players try to come to terms with his tactics as he stands by the dugout praying for some kind of individual brilliance to win him the game............................Only joking and we all fuck up occasionally including Unai Emery.

Let's be glad he doesn't make a habit of it.
 
We lost, made some individual errors and got beat by the better the team on the day. Many of the players have been rewarded handsomely with new deals - time to show they fully deserve the ludicrous amounts paid. Without doubt a poor a disappointing result but when we do lose, we do sometimes throw in a shocker result wise. Hopefully Emery has kept some magic to sprinkle over these last couple of months.
 
We will get what we deserve after the 38 games have been completed. Unai, thus far has laid the foundations for what could turn out to be a remarkable season. I was expecting 7th /8th as a sign of progression. A strong possibility of 4th/5th, with three first teamers out with ACL's for significant periods, makes it all the more impressive.

My reservations about the high line costing us, did not come to pass. Maybe premiere league coaches and players are not as smart as I thought they were and have still not worked out how to consistently beat the offside trap?

Anyway, my biggest (and only) criticism of Unai has been the failure to sort out the defence. I feel that we need to score at least two to get a result. However, this has been an observation that the art of defending has diminished in the League, with clean sheets being a rarity, even amongst the established elites.

The selling off of Philogene left a slightly bitter taste and the spending money on Morgan, who at first glance does not appear to be any better, is the only other negative. Even putting this down to FPP, Unai would have had a say.

Not related:
I think the format of the Champions League is a farce and no 4th place finisher should be anywhere near the competition, but that is an argument for another day.
 
There's been some criticism of the defence probably from the turn of the year but we have to take into account of the disruption we've had in terms of injury. Apart from Lenglet all have suffered some sort of setback throughout the season and it's this that's caused the problems, difficult to strike up an understanding with so much chopping and changing.
Our best back 4 when all fit,not including Mings here, is Cash Konsa Torres Digne that was the basis for our early season form with occasionally Konsa in for Cash and Carlos dropping in.
To me,and because of our injury crisis ,I feel Konsa and Torres have been rushed back a bit too quickly. Ezri definitely doesn't look quite as sharp as he did pre injury so it all needs to be taken into account with our recent dip of poor results against the likes of Utd Newcastle and spuds.
Hopefully it's just a small blip on what's been as exciting a season as we've witnessed for many a year. It's up to Unai to help regain our focus and put everything into what's left of the season to achieve our goals
 
Pangloss said:
Watching the highlights I actually just think it was all wrong, despite us being the more dangerous side in the first half. As pointed out by other posters there was no midfield, the spaces between players were just too vast, this made life easier for Spurs. Also the extra man in defence made our offside trap a lot worse because there's simply more players who have to co-ordinate it, therefore it was easier to get wrong, and the first goal was a direct consequence of this.

I'd love to know what Emery's thinking was. Did he really think that we had to show Spurs more respect than what we did to Arsenal and Man City or does he see that our players are not in the best condition to play like we usually do?

From the outside it looks like Emery just got things badly wrong.
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I think, without JJ and Booba, we had nobody good enough to fill in on the left of midfield. It would have been wrong to start Tim in holding midfield to move McGinn forward. Faniolo Rogers and Diaby were never going to do it. The speculation all week was about who would fill in that position. In the end, I think he decided changing formation was the best way to get his best XI on the pitch.
 
BodyButter said:
I think, without JJ and Booba, we had nobody good enough to fill in on the left of midfield. It would have been wrong to start Tim in holding midfield to move McGinn forward. Faniolo Rogers and Diaby were never going to do it. The speculation all week was about who would fill in that position. In the end, I think he decided changing formation was the best way to get his best XI on the pitch.
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Fully agree, I think Unai thought the only way to match their athleticism / minimize our lack of it was by picking that team. The 3 lads you picked out are absolutely miles off it, and dumping Tim into a game like that is risky as well.
 
CDX_EIRE said:
Fully agree, I think Unai thought the only way to match their athleticism / minimize our lack of it was by picking that team. The 3 lads you picked out are absolutely miles off it, and dumping Tim into a game like that is risky as well.
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At least with the Kostas and Rogers purchases you can see us making steps to address our athleticism/physicality deficit. That's why I like Tielemans in the 2nd/supporting striker role rather than midfield as it masks his lack of bite and a proper engine.
 
Platypus said:
At least with the Kostas and Rogers purchases you can see us making steps to address our athleticism/physicality deficit. That's why I like Tielemans in the 2nd/supporting striker role rather than midfield as it masks his lack of bite and a proper engine.
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Genuinely, unironically, not just trying to wind @Melon Donkey up, but I think we're really missing Emi2 at the moment. His tenacity and pressing higher up the pitch won us the ball in dangerous positions so many times last season but we're doing it much less than we were.
 
Unai has his preferred style of play but I'm not sure that he feels he has the squad to consistently play that style. Hence the experiment on Sunday.
Looking at our midfield, we have one midfielder with the genuine pace and ability to carry the ball forward and he has been injured for most of this season; thanks England. Our centre backs look vulnerable to crosses largely through injury and the inability to be able to select a settled pairing and we are one injury away from having no viable, reliable centre forward. His plans have been stymied by having the guts of our midfield torn out by a combination of bad luck and bad judgement .
If the stories of us having to sell one of our stars to remain FFP compliant are true, a further drag on Unai's ability to maintain or improve his phenomenal progress will come into play. Our run of bad injury luck coming to an end will be a big factor but I wonder what room for manoeuvre he will have come the summer transfer window and what his requirements will be.
 
BodyButter said:
I think, without JJ and Booba, we had nobody good enough to fill in on the left of midfield. It would have been wrong to start Tim in holding midfield to move McGinn forward. Faniolo Rogers and Diaby were never going to do it. The speculation all week was about who would fill in that position. In the end, I think he decided changing formation was the best way to get his best XI on the pitch.
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I think, before the game, I would have 100% agreed about Tim. So this is very much with hindsight—but why not play Tim in midfield to push SJM up? Emery has himself said that he can 'more or less' do what Bouba can.

We are going to have to now anyway.

Not having JJ caused us a real problem, I can totally see what Unai was trying to do to work around that, unfortunately though it didn't pay off.
 
Dumble said:
I think, before the game, I would have 100% agreed about Tim. So this is very much with hindsight—but why not play Tim in midfield to push SJM up? Emery has himself said that he can 'more or less' do what Bouba can.

We are going to have to now anyway.

Not having JJ caused us a real problem, I can totally see what Unai was trying to do to work around that, unfortunately though it didn't pay off.
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I still don't think the system failed as evidenced by the first half. Spurs scored a good first goal due to a fantastic cross mostly. We gifted them a second by the man most unlikely to do it. McGinn then put the tin hat on it. IMO
 
Thomas Holte said:
He's reverted to Bruce-ball tactics that include a defensive-minded don't lose at any cost, long balls aimlessly pumped up to a single striker who is continuously bullied by centre backs and leaving gaping holes all over the pitch as the players try to come to terms with his tactics as he stands by the dugout praying for some kind of individual brilliance to win him the game............................Only joking and we all fuck up occasionally including Unai Emery.

Let's be glad he doesn't make a habit of it.
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just a bad fecking weekend, with ireland losing as well,,one to forget,,seanie
 
Platypus said:
Genuinely, unironically, not just trying to wind @Melon Donkey up, but I think we're really missing Emi2 at the moment. His tenacity and pressing higher up the pitch won us the ball in dangerous positions so many times last season but we're doing it much less than we were.
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Always seen the value of Emi2 but just didn’t see his value corrolate with the amount of hype before and during. He is Messi compared with the currently useless Zaniolo .
 
Platypus said:
Genuinely, unironically, not just trying to wind @Melon Donkey up, but I think we're really missing Emi2 at the moment. His tenacity and pressing higher up the pitch won us the ball in dangerous positions so many times last season but we're doing it much less than we were.
Click to expand...
Yes, Emi2 is a busy bee but a pest when caught in possession so often. 2 up top not in vogue nowadays but getting Buendia working off Ollie may be productive.
 
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