The fans gathered in numbers at The Emirates. There was a feeling of positivity around the stadium and the fans were excited to see a new, fresh and revamped Arsenal. The fact that Arsenal also had a fairly successful pre-season excited the fans even more. Unai Emery propped up a few surprises before the game as well as during the game. The inclusion of 19-year-old midfield sensation Mattéo Guendouzi in the starting 11 as well as playing Aaron Ramsey in a more forward role were just a few of the many changes that were clearly visible compared to a side Arsene Wenger would field.
However, it didn’t go as planned for the gunners as they suffered a 2-0 defeat. One could argue that Manchester City is not a fair judgment of things to come for the North London club as Manchester City are the defending champions with a team that looks almost unstoppable. Whereas, few Arsenal fans claim that the team needs time to adapt to the new ideology and that they will up and running in the next few games. The positive to take from the game is that the defeat wasn’t as humiliating as the three defeats they suffered last season. But Arsenal fans would have surely loved at least a point from the game if not all three.
Arsenal had a fairly busy transfer window as they brought in five new players – Bernd Leno from Leverkusen, Sokratis Papasthatopoulus from Borussia Dortmund, Lucas Torreira from Sampodaria, Mattéo Guendouzi from FC Lorient and Stephan Lichsteiner from Juventus. This might be one of the last active transfer windows for the gunners as Stan Kroenke has taken over the club after buying Alisher Usmanov’s shares of the club. Considering £557m of the funding was borrowed in the form of loans, it doesn’t look like Arsenal will find its footing financially over the next few years.
Therefore, cheap and quick business will be key in modeling the club over the next few years and Unai Emery has seemed to do just that. By bringing in players for an individual transfer fee not more than £27m, he has cleverly answered the problems that the club faced and provided squad depth as well.