Unai Emery Singles Out Arsenal Forward’s Mistake For Crystal Palace’s Equaliser

Unai Emery decided to focus on the succession of errors rather than Granit Xhaka’s untimely challenge…

Unai Emery decided to focus on a succession of errors which started from Alexandre Lacazette’s when asked about Crystal Palace’s late equaliser, Goal reports.

Wilfried Zaha raced towards our goal and when left one-on-one with makeshift left-back Granit Xhaka, our worst fears were realised with the Swiss star dangling a leg to bring the winger down.

It was a penalty which was bought by Zaha, but instead of pointing the finger at Xhaka, Emery wanted to point at the errors we made in the lead up to the goal.

From having the ball by their byline with Lacazette, the Frenchman decided to check back and launch the ball back towards Lucas Torreira.

The pass was under-hit, and the hosts hit us with a counter-attack which led to the goal.

For Emery, that’s where the problem started: “We can’t do the mistakes on the pitch,” the head coach said when he was asked about why he called Lacazette over and shook him by the face.

“Every day I am doing mistakes also in my decisions, but mistakes are to learn [from] and not to lose our confidence or our decision making on the pitch.

“And I think on the second ball, Lacazette was a bit less in his thinking, I am pushing him to find that because the second ball is one action. We had the ball in the opposition’s box and we do one bad pass.

? "If Lacazette doesn't pass backwards, we don't concede that second goal."

? Unai Emery wants Arsenal to be more positive in their decisions after drawing with Crystal Palace. pic.twitter.com/xssn987ecL

— Goal UK (@GoalUK) October 29, 2018

“When we are in the box I want the players to take the responsibility to find the last action to score, to shoot, to win a corner. But this pass, we lost the ball and then in the transition they scored.”

It’s quite refreshing to see that we now have a coach who tactically sees what we see, and hopefully, now Lacazette will be properly reminded, given that this is his second offence.

At Chelsea, the Frenchman for some reason launched the ball back into our half which saw Eden Hazard cross for Marcos Alonso.