Arsenal FC head coach Unai Emery has admitted that his team chances of qualifying for the Champions have become more difficult after going down by a solitary goal to Westham United over the weekend; the club having missed out on the tournament in each of the past two seasons.
The North London side went down to a Declan Rice solo strike a result that has seen the Gunners collecting only four points from their last four league outings.
“Now it’s more difficult, it’s clear. I think the most important thing for us is to recover our confidence and be more competitive. We need consistency over 38 matches. Now it isn’t enough at the moment.
It’s a bad result. If we can win we are playing against Chelsea [on Saturday] with a three-point maximum distance.
“The big opportunity for us is that we can take in our hands the possibility to be closer to them. This result makes that more difficult,” Unai told reporters after the game.
The sorry form has been compounded by the club’s misery outings away from home where Arsenal have failed to win any of their past five matches on the road in the Premier League with Unai terming it as a challenge they are working on.
“It’s our challenge. Each match is our challenge away. We are working on that. It’s also the opposition team. Like here (against Westham), for example, they are with their supporters they feel good and strong and can push.
We need to take more confidence, more performance collectively, being competitive away to change this moment.
“We started the season away well, being competitive and winning. And then sometimes we are doing but like today [Saturday] we need to do more to be more competitive and to impose our idea and our quality. Today West Ham also have very big players,” Emery added.
The loss compounded by Chelsea’s win over the weekend over Newcastle moved the Blues six points clear of London rivals Arsenal in the race for a top-four finish.