Arsenal boss Unai Emery has said his team are better than their recent results suggest, and need a win to regain lost confidence, following their 2-1 Europa League defeat by Eintracht Frankfurt at home on Thursday.
The hosts went ahead through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but Frankfurt’s Daichi Kamada scored twice after the break, to extend Arsenal’s winless run in all competitions to seven games, for the first time since 1992.
Fans at a half-empty Emirates Stadium made their displeasure known by booing the under-fire Emery and some held up cards calling for the Spaniard to be sacked.
“Now our moment is not good… we are better than we are showing, everybody, the players, the coaches and me… we lost some confidence and we need to win,” Emery told reporters.
“We deserved more, we controlled the game in the first half, we scored one goal. In the second half… we needed to score but we lost the control after 15 minutes and they scored two.
“We didn’t push, we didn’t really take the chances to draw or win this match… I can understand the criticism about the team, about me.”
Arsenal had never experienced as poor a run across 1,235 games under previous manager Arsene Wenger, whom Emery replaced in May 2018, after the Frenchman’s reign of 22 years.
Emery had “taken the team as far as he can”, said former Arsenal defender Martin Keown.
“We witnessed an absolute shambles of a performance in that second half,” Keown, now an analyst, told BT Sport.
“The team selection, the team motivation, the substitutions, the performance — everything was missing. This is relegation form. Do the club realise how tricky this will now be?
“There are football people at the top of the club that need to make the decisions… because otherwise Arsenal will plunge even further down the table.”
Emery brushed aside questions on whether he would remain in charge if eighth-placed Arsenal fail to win at promoted Norwich City in the Premier League on Sunday.
“I am thinking about the next match and analysing that match and the Europa League… how we can improve and achieve that confidence with the players,” Emery added.
Reuters
