Match Reaction vs Citeh (home).

I'm not sure there's a direct correlation with having hunger and desire but we apparently ran more as a team than any other team in week 1.

They are better than us. They should have beaten us. And in the end, the result was as expected. The early gloom and doom is a bit boring to be honest. For me it's a painful and not unexpected first step to hopefully better things. Time will tell on that. But for the next 3-4 months I'm hoping to see improvement, with a few additions/subtractions in the January window to fix areas where we have seen little or no progress.

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Originally Posted by Unai Tea

I'm not sure there's a direct correlation with having hunger and desire but we apparently ran more as a team than any other team in week 1.

They are better than us. They should have beaten us. And in the end, the result was as expected. The early gloom and doom is a bit boring to be honest. For me it's a painful and not unexpected first step to hopefully better things. Time will tell on that. But for the next 3-4 months I'm hoping to see improvement, with a few additions/subtractions in the January window to fix areas where we have seen little or no progress.

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Yes, like headless chucks. (By the way, that was a joke.)

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Originally Posted by Özim

Lacazette and Aubameyang worked in pre-season, Ok it's only friendlies but for me they can both score goals and it makes sense to play them both. Mistakes will happen, lets see if he learns from them.

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We have to play them both, not least as we're not going to keep that many clean sheets IMO, so we need to score more than the opposition - get these two on from the start and we can give other teams more to worry about

Laca and Auba definitely need to play together.

It's not like they're similar strikers either, both have different strengths and give the opposition far more to worry about than any from our collection of passive and ineffective midfielders.

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Originally Posted by Unai Tea

I'm not sure there's a direct correlation with having hunger and desire but we apparently ran more as a team than any other team in week 1.

They are better than us. They should have beaten us. And in the end, the result was as expected. The early gloom and doom is a bit boring to be honest. For me it's a painful and not unexpected first step to hopefully better things. Time will tell on that. But for the next 3-4 months I'm hoping to see improvement, with a few additions/subtractions in the January window to fix areas where we have seen little or no progress.

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This. It's disappointing that the negativity seems to be so near the surface rather than us starting with a clean sheet. We need to remember that this is a team having to adapt to a new manager and a new system. A lack of patience amongst fans is not going to do the team any good as we try to rebuild.

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Originally Posted by IBK

This. It's disappointing that the negativity seems to be so near the surface rather than us starting with a clean sheet. We need to remember that this is a team having to adapt to a new manager and a new system. A lack of patience amongst fans is not going to do the team any good as we try to rebuild.

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Yes, sure, but my crushing disappointment at seeing yesterday's teamsheet was at so many duff players being given a start at the expense of better ones - and the performance showed how misguided it was - just so gutting after all the expectation - losing to City is no disgrace but to start with such a poor selection meant it was inevitable, Emery needs to put it right against Chelsea, i don't care if we lose l just want to see the right 11 on the pitch at the start and a lot more effort from some of them

Seen the highlights but didn't really get a feel for how we played. Seemed like we were well beaten though which is disappointing.
No disgrace in losing to that lot but to go down without a fight isn't really good enough.
Emery gets a free pass for a while, maybe even the whole season unless it's a complete car crash.
Not much sign of a change in mentality just yet though.

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Originally Posted by Mac76

Yes, sure, but my crushing disappointment at seeing yesterday's teamsheet was at so many duff players being given a start at the expense of better ones - and the performance showed how misguided it was - just so gutting after all the expectation - losing to City is no disgrace but to start with such a poor selection meant it was inevitable, Emery needs to put it right against Chelsea, i don't care if we lose l just want to see the right 11 on the pitch at the start and a lot more effort from some of them

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I think he's still tinkering with the team selection and trying to find his starting 11. Took a conservative approach with the first game and it looked more like a Wenger team but I doubt we'll see the same team against Chelsea bar Bellerin, Mustafi and Sokratis. Through the pre season games he tried a number of different combinations and the same goes for the front trio. Testing stage at the moment and trying to see what players a capable of what. I think he'll be justified in dropping many of Wenger's old players for the next match.

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Originally Posted by IBK

This. It's disappointing that the negativity seems to be so near the surface rather than us starting with a clean sheet. We need to remember that this is a team having to adapt to a new manager and a new system. A lack of patience amongst fans is not going to do the team any good as we try to rebuild.

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It’s fair to say he won’t be given time by the fans and the media. Change on the pitch or not, if he doesn’t get top four this season he’ll be under huge pressure from all sides.

If Emery wants to press high up the field then I think he will need to select Welbeck instead of Mikhi as at least that is something he can do. Unfortunately the controlling, passing, scoring is more of an issue but I like his attitude!!