Out with the old, in with the new as Arsenal have just completed their first meaningful match with a new man in charge in 22 years. The Unai Emery era began with a 2-0 loss at home on Sunday to the reigning Premier League champions Manchester City.
Emery and his team certainly had to hit the ground running, as the regular season opener came against an opponent that broke the Premiership records for points, victories, goals, goal differential and title winning margin last season. Against Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech, City took 17 shots, getting eight on target.
Raheem Sterling in the 14′ and Bernardo Silva in the 64′ were the two shooters to get the ball past Cech, who didn’t have a very solid showing. Emery brought in goalkeeper Bernd Leno from Bayer Leverkusen this summer, as insurance in case Cech falters, so the current Gunners No. 1 knows he could lose his gig if he continues to struggle.
After the game described the differences in leadership style between his current and former bosses.
“Arsene is more about leaving the freedom to the players to decide how they want to do the actions, how they feel in that moment,” said Cech.
“With Unai, we work specifically (what) we want to do and how we want to do it. Obviously we had a big task today to do the same thing we worked on since the beginning of preseason. I thought we did it pretty well.”
Given that description, it sounds like Wenger is more laissez-faire (he is French after all) and hands off in certain facets of the game, while Emery is more hands-on in specialization, even to the micro level.
As a team, Arsenal lost possession 58-42% in this contest, and managed just three shots on target.
While their were some positives in this one, the overall result shows that a lot of progress still needs to be made. Yes, it’s only one game and it was against as formidable an opponent as possible, but there is a ton of room for improvement if Petr Cech and company are to rise above last year’s sixth place finish.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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