Football

Lee Dixon tells Arsenal players to confront Unai Emery over his baffling tactics


Unai Emery is under severe pressure following a miserable run of results (Picture: Getty)

Lee Dixon has urged Arsenal’s senior players to confront Unai Emery in an attempt to convince the Spaniard to change his tactics.

The Gunners have endured their worst start to a league campaign since 1982 and are currently eight points adrift of the top four following their 2-0 defeat at Leicester ahead of the international break.

Emery has been heavily critcised for his insistence on encouraging his defenders to play out from the back as well as regularly changing both systems and personnel.

The former PSG boss was well backed in the transfer market during the summer but he has failed to get the best out of record signing Nicolas Pepe, while the likes of Dani Ceballos and David Luiz have also struggled.

Arsenal’s board effectively gave Emery a vote of confidence last week ahead of a run of fixtures against Southampton, Norwich, Brighton and West Ham but club legend Dixon believes results are unlikely to improve unless the players take matters into their own hands.

Arsenal were beaten 2-0 at Leicester prior to the international break (Picture: Getty)

‘From [having] a shot at one end to conceding a penalty at the other end in the space of 20 seconds – that cannot happen, that has to stop,’ the two-time Premier League winner told The Season So Far.

‘Now that game was Watford – I could have done [Aston] Villa at home, I could have done Liverpool away when he played a narrow midfield and let the Liverpool full-backs run the game.

‘I could have picked any number of games and done the same analysis and just overlaid it onto the pitch. It’s happening every week – that has to stop and the players have got to go ‘We don’t know what you’re doing gaffer, can we change it? Can we change something?’

‘But there’s no leaders in that team, there’s no Patrick Vieira to go ‘boss can we change the system or something?’. Unai is banging the drum about how he wants to play and the players can’t do it.’

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