5 takeaways from the first weekend of Premier League football

#1 Emery will need time and patience (lots of it)

Emery will need time to turn Arsenal into title challengers again

As the final whistle was blown after the defending champions Manchester City had coasted to a routine win, Arsenal's Spanish coach would have been ruminating on what he had seen. The Gunners had sparkled in phases against a Cityzens side that was nowhere near their fluent, effervescent best. Yet Arsenal couldn't lay a glove on Pep Guardiola's men.

Starting with a five-man midfield, Arsenal's deficiencies were laid bare for all to see. Mesut Ozil had another disappointing game in midfield, same as Granit Xhaka and Aaron Ramsey. The lack of natural width in the team was something that Emery and the management team (Rahul Sanllehi and Sven Mislintat) surprisingly failed to address in the market and it showed.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan continued to show the folly of Arsenal's swap with Manchester United for Alexis Sanchez as he was anonymous and offered little in an attacking or even pressing sense.

There were positives; Matteo Guendouzi was a lively presence, Stephan Lichsteiner brought solidity when he came in and Shkodran Mustafi did well. However, its still very much Arsene Wenger's team and Emery will need time and patience to rid the team of the stagnation of the last 7 years.