Former Arsenal star Tony Adams said that Unai Emery is too similar to Arsene Wenger to improve the club. Adams, an Arsenal legend called the defeats against Manchester City and Chelsea ‘Wenger performances’. He felt that Arsenal lacked resilience in those matches.
The former Arsenal star said, “After Arsene, I was so excited with the prospect of a real change — it was a great chance to do things differently but against City it was an Arsene Wenger performance — only more so. I felt so sad about that. Everyone knows what Arsenal have been missing — it’s that steel, that resilience.
Whether Emery can coach it or not I don’t know yet, it is early days. But then away to Chelsea they were all over the place again — you’re not watching them thinking ‘there’s a change here’. It’s the same goalkeeper, the same style of play — it just feels the same, there’s no one rocking the boat.
Chief executive Ivan Gazidis has gone for a ‘head coach’ because they don’t want someone with the power Arsene had. But they still want to appease the fans with a style of play like Arsene had. They don’t want to lose the ideology of the ‘beautiful game’ . . . whatever that is.
I don’t think you are going to have success that way because there are clubs doing it far better, with better players and more money than us. Good luck if you think you are trying to outplay Manchester City.”
Adams also said that the likes of Bernd Leno, Stephan Lichststeiner and Lucas Torreira should be starters. While Leno is yet to start a game, Lichststeiner and Torreira have made one and two substitute appearances respectively. He said, “When you sign an experienced defender like Stephan Lichtsteiner, you should play him.”
Arsenal play their next Premier League fixture against West Ham tomorrow.