Merson believes Emery was right about players

Paul Merson has had yet another go at players from his former club.

He also agreed with Emery about the players attittude. This is what he had to vent!

“I don’t like it when a manager comes into a club and says all the players aren’t fit enough. That’s having a dig at the old manager, I don’t like it. When the players start saying, ‘it’s better here now, it’s more fun’ – nah.”

“I believe what Unai Emery was saying about the team, because they shouldn’t be where they are with the quality of players they have, and the results they’ve had, they weren’t doing the right things, no doubt about that. Mesut Ozil wasn’t playing before, fine, but when a new manager’s playing you, don’t say anything.”

“It was always going to be a hard job for Emery. The defence wasn’t good from the word go. It’s all about clean sheets. We’ve seen with Mikel Arteta, the moment the window opened he brought in two defenders. But I found it hard watching Arsenal under Emery. I thought it was soft, like watching Arsene Wenger’s teams, and at least now they’re not getting dominated and bullied by Burnley.”

“Against Leeds they got battered in the FA Cup in the first half, Arteta gets them in and says what he wants and they absolutely dominate the second half and could’ve won by a lot of goals – that tells me something, when managers can turn things around like he did and players listen.”

“Arteta’s not going to come in and tell Ozil how to play a pass, but Arsenal have been the worst team in the Premier League without the ball over the last 10 years and that’s what he’s trying to change.”

“Hard work is all it is. Ask any football fan what they want, and all they want is players to get on that pitch and work their socks off. I played against one of the best teams of all time in AC Milan. Baresi, Maldini, all that lot. You couldn’t believe how hard they worked. They were world-class players, but they worked even harder.”

“I thought Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would be about 31, 32 when he left, and if I was Arsenal I’d keep him in the summer. I’d keep him and say, you know what, give him what you can next year and get us into the Champions League and you can go for free. It’s hard to buy goals, and he’s a natural scorer.”

“Gabriel Martinelli could be a top player and I like him, but if I keep Aubameyang I’ve got 15-20 goals, and that’s some doing. To ask Martinelli to come in and do that, you couldn’t ask that. We think these players are 22 or 23, but at 18 to do it in this league, I’m a big fan of his, it’s just all about timing.”

“You don’t know what they’re going to do with the Europa League, they’ll have to do a Manchester United. It’s hard this year, no disrespect but when United won it it wasn’t that difficult, and there’s some good teams left in it this season.”