Unai Emery cut a frustrated figure after we were beaten 1-0 by Everton at Goodison park on Sunday.
After the match, our head coach discussed the difference in our first and second-half performances, why Aaron Ramsey started on the bench and when he hopes to have Laurent Koscielny and Granit Xhaka available again.
Read on for what he said.
on a disappointing result…
Good afternoon. I have the same idea that i had before. We know it’s going to be difficult and that we are going to have to take opportunities like today. It was a good opportunity to take three points today and continue [in third] in the table, but after the result we are fourth. We need to be consistent in 38 matches but we lost that consistency today. We will have more chances, more opportunities in the next matches. It depends on us and also on other teams. After this result, we can be negative because it’s three points lost, but it’s in our hands to continue to take chances to be in the top four.
on players being disappointed…
Today we had two different halves. In the first half we were consistent and we didn’t concede good chances to them, but they scored from one throw-in, unfortunately for us. In the attacking third, we really needed more. If the result was like we deserved in the first half… we couldn’t continue like that in the second half. We needed to take chances in the attacking half. In the second half we decided to change and play with a 4-3-2-1. Defensively, we lost consistency in the second half. They created more chances in the second half. We created better chances than in the first, but we couldn’t score and they also didn’t. We need this balance in the first and second half, we need to do it better offensively and defensively with the balance. It gives us lots of information. We lost a great opportunity today to take three points.
on whether it was us being poor or Everton playing well…
They feel strong here and physically they have players with good physical performances. They pushed a lot but we controlled the first half better, like we wanted. Offensively we needed to play with more players taking more chances. We did that in the second half but we lost the balance defensively because we conceded more chances than we wanted. Leno was perfect for saving us. We had three good chances and didn’t score.
on Shkodran Mustafi’s challenge and what he said to Marco Silva…
Mustafi arrived late in this action. They gave him a yellow card. I was speaking to him (Marco Silva) because he came in my space on the bench.
on how he stops things spiralling in the next few weeks…
Generally we are good. I don’t think that we lost today because we were very bad. I think It was a bad result and not a good performance, but we are still fourth. We wanted to leave here in third position but we are in fourth. I knew it was going to be difficult before and after the game I think the same. We lost an opportunity and today we didn’t show our best performance. We didn’t impose our gameplay against them. We are thinking about our match on Thursday and the Premier League game against Watford away. We need to be consistent in the next matches and if we do that we can win. There’s some frustration collectively with the result, but we won’t change our idea and our work.
on Ramsey starting on the bench…
Both. He was better and it was his idea to play but we spoke with the doctor and we had a doubt over him playing 90 minutes. We decided for him not to start, then after we needed him to come on.
on whether Koscielny and Xhaka will be available for Thursday…
I don’t know. Maybe Laurent could’ve come back to play today but yesterday we knew it wasn’t possible. I want to be positive for Thursday but it depends how he’s progressing. Xhaka is the same. They are doubts for Thursday. We have players and we know we can produce the performance with all the players. When you lose one match, maybe you can look at the players who didn’t play, but I think it’s rarely the consequence. We’ve won matches with other players, other systems, and we need to be efficient in each moment. We need to be consistent like we are a lot of the time, but sometimes we can lose.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.