A lot of people thought Unai Emery was a home run hire for Arsenal FC, but even the most optimistic pundits couldn’t have imagined he’d engineer a turnaround this quickly. During the final two seasons of the Arsene Wenger regime, 2016-17 and 2017-18, the side often looked shambolic.
Yet here we are just a few months into the first season of Unai Emery and the team is nearing the club record for consecutive wins.
They bested Sporting CP 1-0 tonight in Europa League group stage competition to run their current streak, across all competitions, to 11. Like the amplifier in Spinal Tap, they go to eleven.
Emery won’t let his side look ahead.
“Three matches … that’s a lot of matches. We are only thinking of the next match against Crystal Palace [on Sunday]. We are also enjoying each moment with our supporters,” the Gunners boss said.
“We are thinking about three points at Crystal Palace, but we know that it’s very difficult to win there. For us, continuing to win is what we want but we know it’s not easy and we can lose.”
After Palace comes a League Cup round of 16 date with Blackpool and then Liverpool in the league on November 3rd. That could potentially be a record tying win, with the chance to set a new milestone coming at home against Sporting on November 8.
Throughout the winning streak Emery has done a fantastic job of trying to keep everyone grounded and spotlighting areas that are in need of improvement and thus attempt to ward off complacency.
He did that again tonight, mentioning his side’s slow starts that are in need of correction.
“We cannot impose our ideas in the first 45 minutes, but in the second half we have the chance and the opportunity to change the result. I think we did that in the 45 minutes of the second half. But we need to continue finding the solution for us to be better in the first halves,” Emery continued.
“We spoke in the dressing room before the start of the match today about our objectives. And one objective is this. But the most important thing is that when we were in the dressing room at half-time, we spoke.”
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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