DBasia.news – Unai Emery had a bitter debut when Arsenal got 0-2 defeat by the Premier League defending champion, Manchester City in the first week of 2018-2019 Premier League. The Gunners could do nothing by two beautiful goals from Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva. Arsenal’s supporters conceded it.
They knew for sure that Arsenal are still adapting to the new football philosophy from Emery. At the same time, Emery tried to understand the players’ characters. Moreover, Arsenal are in the shifting era after 22 years under Arsene Wenger.
The 0-2 defeat from Man City who coached by Pep Guardiola for three years wasn’t a surprising thing for Arsenal. Aside from the result, they could take the positive lesson. Arsenal showed the development in playing style compared to Wenger’s era.
The Gunners responded to Man City’s offensive style with open style. It could be seen from the ball possession of both teams are equal with 58 Man City and 42 for Arsenal.
Unai Emery
There are two particular differences of Arsenal’s strategy: high pressing to the opponent during the ball possession or high-intensity play. Also, they built the attack from the back side through short passings. Though still far from perfect, Arsenal’s playing style got better under Emery.
When they built the attack from the back side, the goalkeeper involved as the outfield player who had to give short passings to the nearest players, mostly the defenders. Petr Cech felt the change of role after years kicking the ball far from the penalty box.
In his 36, Cech learned about it and the former Chelsea goalkeeper enjoyed his new role, though many times he did a mistake during the passing amid the pressing from Man City players.
“You play the best way for the team and I think that in a way if you want to dominate the game through possession you need to use every player. You can see at this level that one vs one is difficult to play so you need to use the goalkeeper as a spare man every time you can – that is the role of the goalkeeper,” Cech explained reported by Telegraph.
Petr Cech
“If you play for a team who is happy to play a long-ball and a completely different way then the keeper plays a different way – but for what we want to do I think it is going to be important,” he said.
During the match with Man City, Cech touched the ball 57 times and became the second player who did that after Mateo Guendouzi. Cech also finished 42 passing and that was the first time he did it in the Premier League. If Cech could do it in his 36, why doesn’t Joe Hard do the same in Man City? In the end, he moved to Burnley.