Well we here at Untold Gooner News were hoping to see Unai Emery get the chance to turn things around with his Arsenal team but after last night’s incredibly sorry 2-1 Europa League loss to visiting Eintracht Frankfurt the writing was on the wall as Tony Attwood explains in the video below…
The Europa League clash vs Frankfurt went against Arsenal and Emery from the first whistle. From Willock and Aubameyang getting in each other’s way in the first few minutes as they both failed to score what should have been a simple header to put them 1-0 up, to the early injury to David Luiz who paired with the recalled Granit Xhaka was making the team and midfield look more solid, to the way Emery’s side just capitulated after Daichi Kamada’s brilliant double turned the match on its head in 10 minutes of the second half after Frankfurt had only managed one shot on goal in the first half.
As Tony mentions only one in five managers changed during the season actually improves the team in the Premier League so it will be interesting to see if former Arsenal player Swede Freddie Ljungberg, after being appointed interim boss, can inspire the team and deliver results as he so successfully did as a player for Arsenal as part of the “Invincibles”.
Many pundits and even loyal former players like Martin Keown were calling for Emery to be fired after the stunning home loss to the German side last night. You have to go all the way back to 1992 (27 years!!) to match a period of such dire play from the Gunners as they have now gone seven matches without a win and are winless for over a month at the moment. The club made a terrible decision last night to stop Red Arsenal members from buying tickets and stopped any walk up attendees, meaning the crowd was at least 20,000 people smaller than it should have been and the stadium had huge areas without anyone sitting in them – another bad decision from the Arsenal board with some stories erroneously reporting that the small crowd caused Emery’s sacking
As Freddie takes over, Arsenal sit in 8th position in the League on negative 1 goal difference and have only recorded 4 League wins so far and have only recorded 8 wins in all competitions from their 20 games played. It just is not good enough for Arsenal to be on a streak of this nature and to be sitting with a negative goal difference.
Winning one match should make all the difference to the confidence of the team now, like their Sunday trip to play Norwich in the League or the subsequent League matches vs Brighton and West Ham before the Gunners face Standard Liege in the Europa League with a spot in the knockout round still to be achieved by the club. These very winnable 4 games give Ljungberg a very good opportunity to get off to a flying start like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer did last season when appointed interim boss at Manchester United. Let’s hope Arsenal can emulate the start of United under Solskjaer but can maintain the momentum. We shall soon see.