Peter Henry
Arsenal may be the form team in English Football having won 10 games in a row, but Gunners coach Unai Emery has revealed that he wants his team to become more balanced in terms of attack and defence.
Despite the Gunners superb run of form and the fact they have been playing some breathtaking attacking football, their defence has looked extremely shaky at times, with Arsenal legend Paul Merson even suggesting recently that he expects his former club to be ripped to shreds when he comes up against high quality opposition.
Emery’s side will be aiming to make it 11 wins on the spin when they travel to Portugal to face Sporting Lisbon in the Europa League tonight and the Spanish coach admitted that while he is happy with his sides forward play, he wants to see them shore things up at the back.
“We want the balance – the balance to score a lot and also not to concede a lot of goals,” he told his pre-match press conference.
“But for me the individual goalscoring statistics for the players is very important, as it is for the supporters to be excited with many things on the pitch. Scoring goals is important for this spectacle.
“For me, with this balance, we want to score a lot and with different players. I want our strikers to have a lot of chances to score but also to find the balance defensively.”