Did Emery confirm a ‘big’ summer for Arsenal?

Morning all.

If by some miracle we secure top four then great. It’s what the club needs financially, the players need for Champions League and it’s probably what most fans want too. Arsenal back competing with the best clubs in Europe. We’re fortunate though in a way because we still have two chances to obtain that goal. Chelsea do too, Utd though, well their eggs are all in the top four basket and of course, I hope they fail.

Unai Emery held an interview with Sky Sports over the last couple of days. It made interesting reading. For me anyway. The usual stuff was said about improving our defence, getting the fans up for all the matches and not just the big ones like the NLD but he knows that it’s up to his team to do that. Just as it’s up to his team to have all lovers of football wanting to watch Arsenal from beginning to end. Kind of hints at him acknowledging that perhaps some of us would rather stop watching than endure the pain which comes with Arsenal’s struggles, especially away from home. But the sentence which stood out from the rest was this one:

“In the Premier League, technical quality without physicality is not enough,” he says. “City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea… All the top teams here are physical andtechnical. Arsenal need to be the same.”

The good old soft southerners who don’t like it up ‘em has been attached to Arsenal for years now. From being a tough physical side thanks to the likes of Adams, Keown, Vieira, Gilberto, Wrighty, Bergkamp, yes Bergkamp didn’t suffer fools, Arsene Wenger changed tactic preferring smaller, technical players. Or rather small. Or smaller, but definitely less robust and that’s how it pretty much stayed until he left.

I can name on one hand who I believe our tough players are, probably with a thumb left to fill and that’s the difference between us and many of the rest. Not just the teams Emery referred to either as we more than matched Toots and Chelsea. It’s the Wolves, Watford, Burnley, Palace, Southampton etc who we struggled with. They’ve got good players, some probably better than ours but their biggest and best quality is their build. Physically and mentally.

Lacazette, Torreira, Sokratis and Kolasinac, after those I’m struggling to think of a player who looks ready to go into battle with his teammates away from home. If there was a brawl, those listed would probably be the first to get involved, to be in there with their mate to protect him. Look back to that infamous game against Utd. That’s what we lack, camaraderie, a trenches mindset. I’m not condoning the actions of our players against Utd, just their spirit and respect for each other.

So when Unai Emery says he wants his Arsenal team to be more physical, perhaps his intention is to sign players more like Sokratis and Torreira and less like Ozil, Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan, Koscielny, Ramsey, Iwobi, Elneny etc. Perhaps players with a bit more height and physicality about them too. I certainly hope so.

Be honest, if you were a professional footballer playing for a Premier League club, would you fear playing against this Arsenal team? Compare that to the good old days, even back to the George Graham era, we were a team to be feared. ‘We once could win a game in the tunnel’  is something I’ve often heard/read our previous players say.

Fat chance of that happening these days eh…