There has been much debate over Arsenal’s ‘style’ or ‘philosophy’ since Unai Emery was appointed last summer. The manager himself spoke in fairly vague terms about wanting his team to be ‘protagonists’ and to press high up the pitch at his unveiling. It’s fair to say that Arsenal have, for better or worse, not followed a particular template in the intervening 15 months or so. At the moment, we don’t know if Emery was just speaking for the sake of avoiding dead air in his opening press conference and perhaps didn’t expect to be taken at his word so vigorously. Or else, maybe he had a blueprint in mind but quickly realised he couldn’t achieve it with the players he had...
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