Press conference

Emery on his substitutions at Brighton

Alexandre Lacazette
Alexandre Lacazette

This season, we've scored nine goals through our substitutes - more than any other side in the Premier League.

But despite making three changes by the 70-minute mark, we could find no way through at Brighton on Boxing Day and afterwards Unai Emery faced the media to discuss his thinking.

This is what he told them:

on why he thinks his substitutions didn't make an impact today...

Tactically, some matches I did that and I wanted to control it better with the positioning on the pitch. But in the second half we couldn't do our ideas on the pitch for imposing ourselves and this imposing positioning can give us more options in attacking moments to score. We created less chances in the second half and not clear [chances].

 

on if he regrets taking off Ozil…

It’s only tactical - we’ve changed the idea at half-time in other matches, with other players. Today I thought to do it with Mesut, but it’s only tactical - not another problem.

on why he took off Alexandre Lacazette while drawing the game...

But I think also that Aaron Ramsey deserved to play, he deserved to take responsibility also because he wants to help us. I think Aaron Ramsey played a good match today in this moment.