Arsenal under Unai Emery. A new era? Or is it the same old story?

For the last few years of Arsene Wenger's reign at Arsenal it was clear that things needed to change. Season in, season out, a familiar pattern was emerging: They would start the season off very well, winning many of their games convincingly and looking like true title contenders. Then around November the results would begin to drop (normally around the time they played another top six side), and their title challenge would never recover.

After months of banners and Youtube rants, the Arsenal fans finally got their wish when Wenger stepped down at the end of the 2017/18 season having finished sixth in the league; Wenger's worst ever finish as Arsenal manager. The fans realized that new manager Unai Emery would need time and money to get Arsenal back to it's former status as one of Europe's biggest clubs (probably the biggest to have never won the Champion's league).

At the start, it looked as if they were well on their way. After losses to Manchester City and Chelsea in the opening two games of the season Arsenal went on an impressive 22 match unbeaten run. That was ended by Southampton in an uninspiring 3-2 loss where it became apparent that Arsenal's long standing defensive issues were still a huge problem. Then came the 5-1 trouncing by Liverpool at Anfield two weeks later. Iwobi's positional intelligence and movement, getting him through the Liverpool midfield, to play a slick cross for Maitland-Niles to slot home, provided the Arsenal fans with their sole highlight of what would be a very sobering game. Each Liverpool goal was one comical defensive error after another (two of the goals were penalties). The most glaring was Liverpool's second. Firmino dancing through lunging tackles, may have looked reminiscent of Maradona, but when you see those 'tackles', you start to wonder if Sokratis and Mustafi had been picked off by a sniper in the crowd. Take this with the fact that Arsenal's unbeaten run still leaves them only three points ahead of Manchester United (who, up until now, have suffered their worst start to a League season in thirty years), and the pattern starts to look all too familiar.

Obviously, this can be put down to a variety of reasons, not least being the board. It's very clear that despite all of Emery's tactical knowledge and implementations, Arsenal need to start signing better players. The board need to support Emery and sign the players he wants for his system. As it is, the current owner Stan Kroenke has refused to invest any of his own money into the club, believing that it should be run as a self sustaining model. The fact that no club, run this way, has ever won the Premier League has left many wondering if that is a decision by Kroenke for the club, or for himself.

However, there are questions about Unai Emery's decision making aswell. One decision I find personally baffling is the fact that despite making it clear that Ramsey has no future in Emery's system, Emery still continues to pick him. You could argue that this is due to the fallout with Özil, but in that case, did Emery axed Ramsey from his plans too soon?Maybe so, when you consider that clubs like PSG and Juventus have expressed interest in signing the 28-year-old Welshman.

It still remains to be seen how the rest of the season will play out for the Gunners, however with a rejuvenated Manchester United breathing down their necks and injuries which have exposed the weaknesses of the squad, Emery is under huge pressure to get Arsenal back in the race for Champions League football.

Is it the end of the 'Banter era', or just a new chapter?

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