Different manager, same old Arsenal

It’s a question that won’t go away at the moment, so let’s have another look at it: have Arsenal actually improved under Unai Emery?

Up until last week I hadn’t watched a full Arsenal game this season, but I have to admit that in the bits and pieces I had seen, I thought they looked pretty good.

Then last Monday they came to Bramall Lane and I saw them in action for a full 90 minutes. And my opinion shifted considerably towards “not overly impressed”.

Their desire to calmly pass it out from the back, while admirable in some senses, seemed to me to be bordering on obsession. And there didn’t seem to be much of a Plan B to turn to when this Plan A clearly wasn’t having the desired effect.

Ray Parlour, a bit of an Arsenal legend in his playing days, waded into the argument last week, saying that he doesn’t think progress has been made since Arsene Wenger left.

And I have to say, admittedly based mostly on their performance against Sheffield United, I think he may be right.

For too long under Wenger it was all about the passing, the fluidity and the creative skills of the team rather than its overall effectiveness. Many people believed, myself included, that Wenger was more interested in getting his team to score the perfect goal than getting them to win matches.

Emery appears to have a painfully similar approach to the game and a comparable stubbornness when it comes to changing his style of play. True, the players don’t seem totally obsessed with creating the perfect goal but, as a team, they do seem to spend too much time fiddling around when a more direct approach might be necessary.

When you are losing 1-0 to a newly promoted, inexperienced and clearly inferior team with just minutes to go, does your goalkeeper really need to be playing short passes to your defenders in his own box? Or should he just lump it up the field and try to get something from the law of averages?

I know what I would prefer to see in those circumstances.

Given time, maybe Emery will prove to be a massive success at the Emirates. Maybe his brand of football – passing even when you don’t need to – is the way forward. Maybe that is how all titles will be won in the future.

But in the present, teams need to be able to adapt their game plan, but from what I have seen, flexibility doesn’t seem to be one of Emery’s stronger points.

Unless he opens his mind to the idea that there is more than one way to play football, I don’t think we will be able to say Arsenal have notably improved under his leadership.

When Arsenal were failing to win under Wenger he had trophies, titles and reputation to lean on. Emery doesn’t have any similar goodwill, which is why he should expect deep and ongoing scrutiny of his approach and tactics.

And that will go on until he either achieves something significant or the club decides that replacing Wenger with Wenger-lite wasn’t the greatest idea.

When enough is enough

Last week I expressed my concern that getting teams to walk off the pitch in the face of racial abuse wasn’t the right course of action.

Before the article was even printed, another racism incident arose, causing the FA Cup tie between Yeovil Town and Haringey Borough to be abandoned when the away team walked off the pitch.

Logically speaking you would expect me to be against Haringey’s actions. However, when I said teams should play on and not give in to the morons, I was talking about verbal abuse, chants and gestures.

Replacing Wenger with Wenger-lite wasn’t the greatest idea

In Haringey’s case it went way beyond that, with spitting and bottle throwing from the home fans, particularly aimed at black goalkeeper Valery Douglas Pajetat.

That is crossing a line, and a clear example of when walking off is the only logical course of action.

It’s one thing if the abuse is limited to shouting and singing, but when it gets physical and degrading then that is too much to tolerate.

I still believe playing on in defiance of the mentally and socially challenged morons is generally the right approach.

But, like every situation in life, there are always exceptions. And when it gets physical, that is definitely one of them.

Slipping through the system

Despite Red Star Belgrade fans being banned from travelling to away matches, more than 150 of them managed to get in to watch their Champions League game against Tottenham Hotspur last Tuesday.

Reports suggest they probably bypassed the ban by purchasing corporate packages and then, once inside the Tottenham stadium, congregating together in a particular area.

As loopholes go, that is a pretty big one and the sort of thing you would imagine the football authorities might have seen coming.

Makes you kind of relieved Uefa aren’t in charge of airport security…

Hip, hip, Murray

Andy Murray won his first ATP singles title in two years last week when he beat Stan Wawrinka to claim the European Open.

Back in January the Scot announced his impending retirement from the sport due to hip issues, but after some drastic surgery it now looks like he is aiming to get right back to the top of the sport.

Of course, generally speaking that is great news. Always good to see one of a sport’s genuine nice guys achieving something that looked so impossible.

But, on the other hand, you have to wonder if all this is really worth it for Andy.

I have read articles last week in which surgeons are suggesting that if his hip breaks down again due to the punishment of the sport it will cause damage that cannot be repaired.

As a very wealthy, relatively young man (32) with three children under four, is it really worth jeopardising a long-term healthy future for the chance of winning a few more titles?

I’m not so sure.

But then again, I’m not a sporting legend so I know little about the thrill and addiction of performing at the highest level and winning trophies.

That must be one heck of a hard thing to give up forever.

james@findit.com.mt
Twitter: @maltablade