Four ways that Unai Emery can improve Arsenal's defence

#2 Lowering the backline

Mustafi (centre, no. 20) attempts to organise his teammates during their defeat by Manchester City

After the club's first four games, it's clear that Emery has committed to playing a high defensive line. They have caught opponents offside more than any other Premier League team thus far, 4.3 times per game which is a significant increase (2.3) from last season.

This seems good on the surface but when the linesman doesn't flag, they also face a serious problem - having allowed 15 though balls to be played in 360 minutes. At that rate, they will allow 143 over the course of this season. Putting that into context, even Wenger's backline last campaign only allowed 76.

A high line does have its benefits, though it's important that the defenders are able to read the game effectively and Arsenal's central defenders struggle.

In the 2013/14 campaign, they regularly started a significantly slow Per Mertesacker alongside Laurent Koscielny, playing a high line which allowed only 36 goals throughout the campaign. From this, it's clear that Emery needs a change at centre-back or allow them less ground to cover. Rob Holding (22) and Konstantinos Mavropanos (20) are talented and deserve an opportunity of their own to shine, so it wouldn't hurt for the Spaniard to integrate the pair into his first-team plans soon either.