Nicolas Pepe can galvanise Arsenal but defensive headaches still loom for Unai Emery

Even after two decades in charge, Arsenal’s previous manager could seem a mystery. Inscrutability was part of Arsene Wenger’s aura, sometimes a useful mask. In the high times, his elusiveness cast him as a sage. ‘Arsene knows’, used to be a comforting catchphrase until it was drowned out by chants of ‘Arsene, Go!’ The shroud of anonymity hanging about his successor has a different quality. But give him time. Unai Emery, whose public utterances are anything but revealing and whose team’s inconsistencies are a confounding puzzle, has not yet been in command for five per cent of the extraordinarily long epoch that Wenger held the reins. ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ What is reasonable to ask is whether Emery has achieved at least a five per cent uplift at the club, or on the overall mood left by Wenger when he departed in May 2018. In some respects, it has been better than that. Wenger’s last campaign of his 21 as boss finished with a sixth place in the Premier League, a deficit of 37 points behind champions Manchester City, and a Europa League semi-final. The bare-bones audit of Emery Year One: fifth in the league, 28 points behind champions City, and a Europa League final. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ So why the long faces around the Emirates? Mainly because it is not so long ago that Arsenal regarded themselves as genuine challengers for the Premier League title. They finished second in 2016, albeit behind Leicester City, and a top-four finish was a given through the Wenger years right up until his last two. Symptoms of a slow, steady fall since then are unmistakable. If Emery could at least make Arsenal the masters of their own city by the middle of 2020, he will have put a significant brake on the slippage. The gloom that has lingered over this summer carries over directly from the insipid denouement of 2019-20. With seven league matches to go, Emery’s Arsenal had established their sleek home as something of a fortress; Arsenal stood third in the Premier League, and as London's number ones. But there followed a collapse, just four points taken from the next six games, allowing a rickety Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea to overtake them. Further capital punishment followed when Arsenal fell apart again in the later stages of the Europa League final, against Chelsea. Of concern to those trying to decipher what Emery, who established himself as a determined, focused tactician during his successful spells in his native Spain with Valencia and Sevilla, is all about are some simmering issues over authority. The new manager’s second pre-season began with the confrontational posture of Laurent Koscielny, the club captain, about his future. Koscielny had asked to have his contract terminated so he could seek a return to his native France; Arsenal refused. The impasse has continued with Koscielny playing no part in first-team activities. Then there is Mesut Ozil, the club’s highest earner, in and out of the side and back and forth between rancour and rapprochement with Emery last season. A galvanised Ozil can still be a match-winner. But his relationship with the manager needs to shed the burdensome notion that selecting him is a risk, that it jeopardises the balance between high-industry and creativity, that the German can quickly become an expensive luxury in a side too easily made to look brittle, especially away from home. The chronic difficulties of defensive organisation that undermined the later Wenger seasons remain, although ahead of a knee injury that shortened his 2018-19, the young centre-back Rob Holding hinted he might provide some long-term solutions. Bernd Leno, who joined the club last year, also has the air of a goalkeeper eager to command his penalty box and trust his footwork well beyond it. Petr Cech, the veteran keeper, has retired, Koscielny has an eye on a move, and Aaron Ramsey, the long-serving and talented midfielder has joined Juventus. With striker Danny Welbeck also released, that’s quite a rupture with the past, though with it an opportunity for Emery to firmly define his vision of what his club should become. He has a spirited trio of young midfielders to develop, in Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira and Dani Ceballos, the former pair 2018 recruits and the latter freshly arrived on loan from Real Madrid. Up front, there really should be a ready supply of goals. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was joint leading scorer, along with Liverpool’s Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah, last season. While his complicity with Alex Lacazette remains a work in progress, when that duo do find their groove, Arsenal going forward can be both a joy to watch and a devilishly hard juggernaut for even the most canny, pacey defenders to contain. Adding Nicolas Pepe, the Ivorian who scored 22 Ligue 1 goals last season for Lille, to that pair is a declaration of bold intent, and Arsenal have committed close to €80 million (Dh327.5m) on his prospective signing. But it is hard not to imagine that Emery does not think a similar investment would be as well channeled on the back half of his team, to plug those leaks.

Nicolas Pepe can galvanise Arsenal but defensive headaches still loom for Unai Emery

Offensively the London side are strong, but hopes of a return to the top four in the Premier League will depend on handling a changing of the guard and boosting the rearguard