Paul Merson has said that Arsenal’s defeat to Chelsea was not Unai Emery’s fault, blaming the forwards for missing a whole host of chances.
Much has been made of the fact that Arsenal haven’t picked up a single point so far this season under new boss Unai Emery, although they have been dealt a pretty difficult opening set of fixtures, having played Man City and Chelsea so far.
While many have been talking about Arsenal’s shambolic defending during the 3-2 defeat to Chelsea last weekend, in fairness, the Gunners did the same to their London rivals, carving out a number of clear-cut chances.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were most guilty of missing the biggest chances, leaving Paul Merson to say that Arsenal wouldn’t have won the game even if Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson, Jurgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola were in charge:
“Let’s be honest, if Arsenal had put the chances away against Chelsea – and it’s easy to say: ‘Oh that’s a half-chance’ – but they had five unbelievable chances at Stamford Bridge,” Merson said on Sky Sports.
“If they put those away, they come away from the Bridge winning 7-3, and everyone would be saying: ‘Wow’.
“I thought Emery took a bit of unfair stick from the first game against Man City. Who expected them to beat Man City?
“But on Saturday, you can’t legislate for misses like that, you just can’t.
“You could have (Jose) Mourinho, Sir Alex (Ferguson), Wenger, (Jurgen) Klopp and Pep (Guardiola) on the bench; if you’re missing chances like that you won’t be winning too many games.”
