5 upgrades at Arsenal under Unai Emery

#1 Upgrading the traditional ‘Arsenal Style of play’

Arsene Wenger was a huge admirer of free-flowing football. His philosophy was clearly seen in Arsenal’s style of play. It is for this reason Arsenal were often nicknamed as the ‘Barcelona of England’. Domination of possession, series of short passes with eye-pleasing combination play in the attacking one-third was the trademark of Arsenal’s football under Wenger.

Unai Emery decided to keep the beautiful Arsenal style of play intact, yet upgrading it by introducing work ethics and efficiency into it. The new gunners’ boss worked tirelessly in the preseason to push the limits of the club's players; mentally and physically. As a product of this, Arsenal is now playing with a lot more fluidity not only against mid-table and lower positioned clubs but the stats suggest considerable improvements in Arsenal against Premier League heavyweights as well.

The match between Arsenal and Liverpool played on 3 November 2018 finished 1-1. When the Gunners encountered the same opposition at the same turf last term the final score was 3-3 (on 22 December 2017). Although, on both the occasions teams had to settle for one point each yet statistics signifies sizeable enhancement in Arsenal under Unai.

Statistics signifies sizeable enhancement in Arsenal under Unai

Arsenal dominated possession in the latest fixture against the reds. The gunners enjoyed 61.8% of the time on the ball which was more than 8% as compared to their previous meeting. The passing accuracy of the team also improved by 10%. Despite the monstrous figure of Van Dijk, Arsenal won 56% of the aerial duels. There were 100 more passes and 4 more crosses by the home team. Arsenal also bettered their average passing streak from 4 to 5 passes.