My Arsenal Blog

Following a transfer window during which his future became obviously uncertain but no move materialized, Shodran Mustafi says he isn’t interested in going to “war” with Arsenal.

Mustafi arrived to the Emirates from Valencia back in 2016 for a fee officially undisclosed but reported at around £35 million, and was announced as an important defensive addition to the team led by Arsene Wenger at the time. He has been a prominent feature for the Gunners in all three seasons so far, making a total of 81 appearances, but he played in the Europa League win away to Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday for the first time this term.  .......Read more here.....

Arsenal’s 0-3 win in the Europa League match against Eintracht Frankfurt yesterday evening sure came as a relief to coach Emery. The three goals were scored by Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the 38^th, 85^th and 88^th minute, respectively, making Eintracht Frankurt concede their first home defeat in ten years.

It was 18-year-old Saka’s fifth first-team appearance and his first goal for the club this season. Speaking after the match Saka said he was very proud of his achievement, which included two assists and one goal. He said it was his dream to score for Arsenal’s first team, and now that his dream has come true he wants to “do more” for the club. Saka is now the youngest player who scored for the Gunners in Europa League, having turned 18 only a couple of weeks ago.  .......Read more here.....

Nacho Monreal decided to return to Spain after six and a half years in England, signing a two-year contract with Real Sociedad in August 2019. The Spaniard has been open about wanting to play in LaLiga Santander again, but after coming to the club in May 2018 Unai Emery made it clear that he didn’t want to lose his defender. This only postponed Monreal’s decision to return to his home country and his family. He reveals that once his mind was made up he started following Real and wanted them to win.  .......Read more here.....

On how to approach this game:
To learn is first to have analysis on how we can improve, how we can recover our confidence playing with our objectives, starting and controlling the match, what we are doing with the ball. Really on Sunday we needed more, that’s what we wanted. We made some mistakes and conceded some goals. We spoke and we are working yesterday and today on how we can play tomorrow. Frankfurt are usually doing a very high press, with very fast players around the opponents. Tomorrow we need to improve on the mistakes we made on Sunday to do better. Also we want to achieve another way on the pitch, how we can break the pressing. After we want to control every game with the ball, with the positioning. We did that on Sunday in the first half, but in the second half we didn’t. And tomorrow is a new challenge, how we are improving, our positioning, our control and our ability to break the press. Also how we can play the long ball and make some actions in the attacking third, to get the ball, to score and to win the match. Tomorrow is another challenge for us to show we can improve from the game on Sunday.  .......Read more here.....

The focus has shifted once again for Arsenal, as they prepare to go head to head with Eintracht Frankfurt in the opening game of their Europa League group stage. Unai Emery knows that he needs a big result in order to ease the stressful atmosphere currently lingering around the club, and as reported by Arsenal.com, he was more than happy to discuss that point in his press conference before the game.

On squad selection:
We are playing a lot of matches and I want to use different players and also we can have some rotation in the first XI. We have 19 players in the squad for tomorrow, Sokratis and Mesut are rested for the match.  .......Read more here.....

After winning the opening two Premier League games of the season, Arsenal’s results haven’t been that great. While the Anfield defeat and the North London Derby draw perhaps shouldn’t draw too much criticism, what happened at in the second half at the Vicarage was a complete shambles. Defensive mistakes and the inability of midfield to wrest the control of the game away from the charged up Hornets resulted in a two-goal lead being wasted and two points unnecessarily dropped.  .......Read more here.....

on if he’s going to have to rethink how we play out from goal kicks…
Yes but after their goal we tried once more and we broke their lines and we get into the attacking third with space. We didn’t achieve good chances in less moments we did that, but we need to repeat and we need also to have the capacity and to improve with be able to break when the teams want to press us like today, Watford was doing that.  .......Read more here.....

In the wake of Arsenal’s draw with Watford, as reported by Arsenal.com, manager Unai Emery had some thoughts on what went down in the game. While some will call his comments ‘excuses’ and others will generally find ways to criticise him, it’s important to have this kind of clarity between fans and the gaffer.

Obviously, you didn’t need us to tell you that, but we still remain hopeful for Emery’s future at the club.  .......Read more here.....

Arsenal are facing a tough six days ahead of them, as they are scheduled to appear in three games within a short period of time: on Thursday, 19 September, the lads will be travelling to Germany, where they will be playing a Europa League match against Eintracht Frankfurt; on Sunday, 22 September, they have a Premier League head-to-head with Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium; finally, on Tuesday, 24 September, the Gunners will be playing against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup. Arsenal’s last match of the month is due to take place on 30 September against Manchester United at Old Trafford.  .......Read more here.....

Arsenal are coming off the fact of a pretty, well, fascinating game against Watford, in which they were unable to hold on and secure the three points they desired (and desperately needed). They were 2-0 up at one stage and seemed to be in cruise control but in the end, they allowed their defensive issues to get the better of them in a massive, massive way.  .......Read more here.....