Arsenal boss Unai Emery has revealed what he believes is necessary in order to make his side a more defensively sound unit moving forward.
The Gunners have started well under the Spanish tactician for the most part after a tricky start to life as Arsene Wenger’s successor.
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They’ve collected three wins in five Premier League games, and got their Europa League campaign off to a winning start against Vorskla on Thursday night.
However, while they’ve scored 10 goals in five Premier League games so far this season, they’ve conceded nine, and so he certainly has to find a better balance in his team to ensure that they become more difficult to break down.
Sustaining such a record will surely see them fail to reach their objectives this season, but Emery believes he already knows what must be done in order to rectify the problem.
“First is [to work on] confidence with our defensive players,” he said, as per ESPN. “Second is working tactically to be more compact. But not only for the defensive players, for the whole team, the first XI and the other players.
“This process needs also time, but it’s our first disappointment of the first games this season. I think we need to improve this.”
Given he made several summer signings aimed at shoring things up defensively, the Arsenal boss will undoubtedly hope that the influence of the new faces grows as they continue to settle in north London.
Bernd Leno, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Lucas Torreira, Stephan Lichtsteiner and Matteo Guendouzi will all be key in making that desire to improve defensively become a reality, as the Gunners simply can’t continue as they are.
To put it into further context, they’ve conceded the same number of league goals as Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City combined to show how far off the required standard they are. If they wish to be competing with their rivals both domestically and in Europe, they’ll have to improve in that department and quickly.