Can Unai Emery Salvage His Arsenal Career ?EmeryOut Movement Set to Begin in Earnest

Unai Emery’s Arsenal hasn’t lost a match since an understandable 3-1 defeat to league-leading Liverpool at Anfield one month ago. In the time since, the club has two draws and two victories in all competitions and sits fourth in the English Premier League table with 11 points. Yet, despite that lack of negative results in the last month, Emery finds himself under immense pressure from Arsenal supporters, a large portion of which would love to see him booted out of North London. And while the results might not indicate a month’s worth of mismanagement and poor decisions, the performances do.

Although the Gunners drew 2-2 with arch-rival Tottenham in the final match before the commencement of the September international break—a match which, I assure you, featured plenty of issues itself—the real problems began in the first match back from the break against Watford at Vicarage Road. The first half went off largely without a hitch. Two goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang gave Arsenal a 2-0 lead going into the break. Even though Watford made plenty of sorties into Arsenal territory, the Gunners seemed to have the match firmly in hand.

Things didn’t go as well in the second half. Midfielder Granit Xhaka admitted after the match that the Gunners played the second half “scared,” and that bore itself out in the performance. Watford heaped on pressure—putting 31 shots on goal, 10 on target—but it was the Gunners who gifted them a draw. Sokratis made an ill-advised pass in the box setting Tom Cleverly up for the easiest goal of his career. Shortly after, David Luiz conceded his second penalty through four games in his Arsenal career, one less than he conceded in the entirety of his run with Chelsea. A match that should have been an easy 2-0 victory ended in a 2-2 draw. It was a shambolic performance that many fans were calling the worst half certainly of Emery’s tenure and perhaps well before that, too.

Unai Emery,Arsenal,