Julien Laurens: Unai Emery Has Shown That There Are No ‘Untouchables’ In The Arsenal Team

By The Editor
on 14th August 2018

French expert Julien Laurens says the subs Emery made were interesting…

French football expert Julien Laurens stated that Unai Emery’s substitutions against Manchester City proved that there are no ‘untouchables’ in the Arsenal team.

In our 2-0 opening day defeat the champions, Emery hooked of Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka as we looked to get back into a game, two players who were one of the first names on Arsene Wenger’s team sheet.

Also, considering that 19-year-old Matteo Guendouzi was handed his debut in arguably the toughest league game of the season, the easy decision would’ve been to substitute the young Frenchman.

However, Laurens believes Emery made a statement during the game and is clear that he’ll remove any player he feels isn’t carrying out his tasks on the pitch.

“I thought it was very interesting that Unai Emery took him (Ramsey) off on Sunday and not Matteo Guendouzi,” the Frenchman said on ESPN FC.

“Instead it was, first Ramsey, and then Xhaka and I think he showed that the status that existed under Arsene Wenger where some players were untouchable almost, doesn’t seem to be there.”

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One of the main criticisms of Emery at Paris Saint-Germain was his apparent weakness and acceptance that the team was going to be run by Neymar.

The Brazilian superstar arrived for a world record fee and despite the instructions from the bench, Emery couldn’t really control what he did next.

It’s also rather difficult to enforce a status quo when a few players had a direct line to the owner who already understands that the playing staff have a longer lifeline than the head coach.

Emery mustn’t allow that to transpire here.