Measuring Success - The Arsenal (Emery) Barometer

Yeah, we have three wins against teams each of whom are going to be fighting relegation for a long time at best. Given how we started, the results since then are basically the minimum acceptable to be credible for any of the season's goals.

What is clearly moving in the right direction, imo, is the players' commitment to Emery, both about his leadership of Arsenal and for their own individual development.

At a lower level, we still have a mistmatch between our talent and the system we play in. On the plus of that however, when we do get the ball forward, we are doing a pretty decent job of creating chances and finishing them.

 

That minimum level of acceptable is a level higher than the results have been for the last 2 years.

 

Yeah, I'm not saying that it's impossible that we could finish top 4 or win the League, or whatever (80 points in the League for me). What I am saying is that we'd lose credibility to those ends, both inside and outside the club.

 

I suppose in reality most Arsenal fans will be ecstatic if we win the games that we are supposed to. Anything more than that would be a bonus!

 

The next 6 league fixtures are all at least fairly interesting, overall it makes for a rough stretch that will shine some real light on the state of things.

As for right this minute though... so far so good!

 

After many many years of inept Wengerball, I had ZERO positive expectations , I made myself prepared for a Moyes type of season
Really impressed with our threee MFs especially the Uruguayan, the coherent, organized play that still pushes forward . Emery is not afraid of yanking stars if they play is not up to snuff. No 84th minute 1st sub, amazing.

People can say what they want about the easy 24 points, but we would have dropped some of those last two years surely .

I still have no meaningf expectations , probsbly better that way.

How nice just to watch games for the sheer enjoyment of it

 

7 actually. These 21 points is where the rubber meets the road. While I don’t worry so much about our goal scoring, this stretch will see us come up against quality strikers. If we give them the opportunities that we have given the last 9 teams we will drop a lot of points over the stretch.

 

This is what I said before the season started. Current status in bold

In summary, we look on pace to reach most of the benchmarks I had in mind. Couple that with the current win streak and some fun games to watch and I’m very happy with the start. Will it last? I suspect we will have a rough patch or two this season, but I’m optimistic that my expectations above will be met.

 

We would draw or lose a lot of games late on like Bournemouth or Watford in recent times under wenger

We just seem a bit more clinical and see these games out better (conceding goals is still an issue)

It will be interesting g to see how we take on Liverpool and Utd

We should’ve beaten Chelsea

 

Halfway through his first season so I guess it’s time to do a little mid year review.

Of the points I listed I’d give him a B-. We are scoring goals and I like some of what he is doing. It’s not always working well and now we are injured and tired it’s working even less well. The defensive errors are reall mounting and I think he needs some real help from Sven and Raul in the next two windows for us to move forward.

That said, we’ve played pretty well in the big games which is a welcome change. Three of the four new signings have been great. And we are just two points off of fourth halfway through the season. We also have 4 more points than last season this time.

All in all, I’m fairly content with what’s going on. Ironically, I think arsene maybe could have done a little more with this squad because torriera and Guen would have been great for AW.

Major disappointments so far have been ozil, Rameys not working out, iwobi’s drop after a promising start, nketieh/AMN/ESR inability to break into the squad in a real way, and the injury situation.

 

I’m sorry, but we don’t create chances we just finish at an absurd clip that we have to hope can be sustained.

We don’t defend well despite setting up in a defensive stance.

Idk, Emery really hasn’t convinced me of anything. He looks like a Spanish Dyche.

The only thing I will give him props for is that this group has more fight and self belief. It’s sad though because he can’t seem to work with strong creative players.

I think Wenger would have done more with this group.

 

Does he, though? By what measure?

This is a stronger squad on paper than Wenger had last year, yet the underlying data is (significantly) worse and we’re barely better off in terms of results so far.

This is not to say I wanted Wenger to stay or that I’m done with Emery. I’m not giving up on him, but he has yet to convince me of any of the things he’s being credited for.

 

Which players would those be? Ozil and Ramsey? Iwobi? Mhiki? Emery has had PEA and Lacazette from the start of the season, Wenger only had Lacazette from the start of the season. Of the players Wenger had available you could maybe argue that Xhaka, Kola, and Holding have been better. Xhaka's improvement is probably due to his pairing with Torreira and/or Guendouzi. Holding showed promise under Wenger, that seems to be realized under Emery, but it could be nothing more than the maturation of a young defender. I will concede that Kola has been better under Emery. Emery trusts him while Wenger didn't.

Finally, in spite of the fact that Arsenal added two defensive midfielders and a central defender during the summer window and Emery was supposed to be able to better organize the defense, Arsenal are currently on track to allow one fewer goal than they allowed last season.

 

Ayyyyyyyyyy

 

That's really all you needed to say. You wanted a new narrative; you got it.

Just don't pretend it's anything other than that.

 

Look, I was a big proponent of AW leaving. But I won’t diminish his ability to extract something magical from the right group of players. For me, AW’s major downfall was he no longer had the personel he needed and refused to get them until too late or sign depth. Auba would be a great Wenger player but it was two seasons too late, ditto for laca. Torreira would be amazing in an AW system, but he never would sign him. Sokrat is no world beater, but is miles beyond any AW CB signed since Kos maybe? He also doubled down on lost causes and refused to substitute/rotate poorly performing players quickly enough.

It’s just my opinion, but I do think if we gave Arsène the same squad he would have done as well or better than Emery so far. Familiarity of the players, knowledge of the league and schedule are multipoint advantages over an incoming manager. That’s said, I don’t want him back and actually it’s a tribute to Emery that’s he’s been able to hold us where we are in his first months at the club. Despite creating less as @DaPrince84 points out, we have more points and closer to the top than last season this time so I’ll take it.

Klop didn’t take pool to challengers over night and neither will Emery. They’ve given Klop time and spent money as well. We will need to do the same if we want to move up.

 

Our players consistently underperformed during Wenger’s reign. They would have this year as well. Actually, players seemed to get worse under him.

Y’all are trippin’.

 

Wenger didn’t make good subs for the most part

Emery has a gassed squad full of shit defenders

He is an upgrade. Let’s give him some actual time? The Brighton game was horrific management though