For the dawn of a new era, Arsenal spent the eve of the season stretching their legs inside an empty Emirates Stadium. It is an unusual measure for the players to train on the pitch reserved for match day rather than at the sanctuary of their London Colney base in the Hertfordshire countryside. The rationale was simple enough. Unai Emery has been to the stadium a few times but never with his team. Some of his staff had not even been anywhere near it. A handful of the freshly recruited players were yet to see the place, had no feel for the dressing room or the walk down the tunnel and out on to the turf they will be expected to perform on come Sunday afternoon against the champions, Manchester City. Plenty of faces needed to familiarise themselves with the place they will call home.
Time for something new. What on earth can the Premier League expect from this Emerified version of Arsenal? So much is unpredictable, with the construction of his first‑pick XI uncertain and the style of the team in adaptation mode. Emery’s own expectation, and the one he wants to put across to his team, is a simple aspiration: be the best you can be. He gave a little insight into that when he described a conversation he had in the past week with Danny Welbeck, who was the final player back from a post-World Cup break and unsure of his future. “When he arrived with us after the holidays, I said to him I want the best performance in his career,” Emery said.
It’s something he asks of himself first of all, but the message has been extended to every member of the squad. Make this your best season yet. Show your strongest qualities. If that is your aim, good things should follow. “I want to get better every day and in each training and in each match,” he says. “I want to transmit to the players the same idea.”
Another snippet of discussion, this time with Stephan Lichtsteiner from Friday’s session, gave another glimpse into how Emery wants his players to forget about how things used to be or what they were conditioned to and to think positively about what is in front of them. “The past is good but it’s finished,” he says. “We were talking with the team and it was the moment for Lichtsteiner to speak. Maybe he is the player with us who has won the most titles. But after all that we start with a new way. We want to continue winning – remember your titles from a big career – but this is a new way to try to win more. In football you live for your present and your future.”
That goes for Emery, too. He has won silverware of some description in each of his past five seasons in management. But the only target he will talk about is improving and showing your best.
For all the tactical, technical and fitness work that has been on the agenda since he arrived, the challenge to change something deep in the psyche of the team is one of the most fascinating aspects Emery faces. That old chestnut about mental strength. The psychological shortcomings that made it easy for an opponent to presume Arsenal do not fancy the fight away from home or for critics to berate them for softness or concentration lapses, need fixing in the sense that there were times when it felt like Arsenal beat themselves as much as any adversary did.
The disparity between their formidable home form last season and serial crumpling away was marked. There had to be some sort of mental block. Arsenal had the second-best home record in the Premier League. With that in mind, it is unfortunate that the encouragement about opening this campaign with a home game is tempered by the fact it is against City – one of two visitors to leave N5 with three points and the only one to hand out an unmitigated thrashing.
When the Spaniard was asked whether he had watched footage from that particular match and how he would have tackled it there was a pregnant pause, long enough to recall a snowy evening when Arsenal looked beaten before kick-off and apparently unable to compute how they might even try to compete with City’s superiority. Emery raised a knowing smile and gave his answer: “A new way.”
That new way, if his team can pull it off, is based on the idea that they want to set the tone for matches, to force the issue. “The message is the same inside and outside the training ground. We want to transmit one idea with personality, style and ambition. We want to play looking forwards. We take the responsibility to be protagonists more than just be in possession. That’s a good message to tell the fans. We want to do that.”
In fairness, it may be more achievable in games that are not against City, but if Arsenal manage to perform with more gumption, more aggression, more belief than they summoned last season that in itself will be a step in the right direction.
“It’s about the mix, when you have a defensive or attacking moment, and I want every player to improve in this way,” Emery says. “My main thing is to start the Premier League, the [FA] Cup, the Europa League, and then my objective is to improve each player with their qualities and our work with them.”
The anticipation among the fanbase has been largely positive during pre-season. There is genuine excitement about how the front half of the team will operate – although that is offset by some trepidation about the back half. It will be interesting to see whether Emery chooses new recruits or experience to help the defence out in his managerial debut in the Premier League. He could select Bernd Leno, Arsenal’s record signing for a goalkeeper, and Lucas Torreira, on the back of an excellent World Cup as a tenacious screening midfielder. Or he could prefer Petr Cech and Mohamed Elneny. Or he could even be super-surprising and go for the teenager Mattéo Guendouzi, who excelled in midfield in pre-season.
It will be just as fascinating to observe whether the cluster of expected starters left behind by Arsène Wenger – such as Mesut Özil, Aaron Ramsey, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – show they have responded already to new ideas.
Match day. Emery has made his decisions, chosen his lineup, prepared his instructions and composed his first meaningful team talk. Time to find out if Arsenal are ready to try to be the best they can be.
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