Unai Emery said the most controversial thing when asked about the reason behind Arsenal’s 3-1 defeat to Manchester City last weekend.
After the match which saw the Gunners drop down Manchester United in the 6th spot of the Premier League, the Spaniard said that his side does not have the tools to compete against the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool and even Tottenham.
“I cannot say a lot about that. They showed their superiority,” Emery explained. “The difference, for example, with City, Liverpool also is big. Tottenham, also, is keeping a lot of regularity in a lot of matches.”
“Our situation now is we need to think game by game, keep our regularity and consistency in 38 matches. Today we lost but it’s normal, they showed their superiority.”
Plenty of the Arsenal faithful was disheartened by the display their team put up against the English champions on Sunday evening. While the Gunners kept their shape and really challenged the title contenders in the first half, they almost gave up in the second, expressive of a side who had accepted their fate.
However, it is the manager’s response to the situation which should be alarming for most fans. Emery further added, “When you’re on the pitch and you are playing one team who in general are better, the players feel that. We need to be stronger. When we can feel stronger with the ball, without the ball, together the confidence and mentality is coming. Our players have mentality but when we’re worse than the opposition we feel that. It’s a negative on the pitch.”
It is not a debate on whether City are better than Arsenal talent-wise but it is certainly a cause for concern when the manager reverberates those same sentiments onto his team’s players.
Unai Emery’s lack of confidence in his players showed on the pitch on Sunday and it would be a shame to see the new manager keep sending out the boys on a regular basis with that same passive thought.
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