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| Unai Emery faces fresh speculation over his future as Arsenal manager after his side were beaten by Eintracht Frankfurt in front of a sparse Emirates Stadium crowd |
Arsenal boss Unai Emery has said his team are better than their recent results suggest, and need a win to regain lost confidence, following their 2-1 Europa League defeat by Eintracht Frankfurt at home on Thursday.
The hosts went ahead through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but Frankfurtโs Daichi Kamada scored twice after the break, to extend Arsenalโs winless run in all competitions to seven games, for the first time since 1992.
Fans at a half-empty Emirates Stadium made their displeasure known by booing the under-fire Emery and some held up cards calling for the Spaniard to be sacked.
โNow our moment is not goodโฆ we are better than we are showing, everybody, the players, the coaches and meโฆ we lost some confidence and we need to win,โ Emery told reporters.
โWe deserved more, we controlled the game in the first half, we scored one goal. In the second halfโฆ we needed to score but we lost the control after 15 minutes and they scored two.
โWe didnโt push, we didnโt really take the chances to draw or win this matchโฆ I can understand the criticism about the team, about me.โ
Arsenal had never experienced as poor a run across 1,235 games under previous manager Arsene Wenger, whom Emery replaced in May 2018, after the Frenchmanโs reign of 22 years.
Emery had โtaken the team as far as he canโ, said former Arsenal defender Martin Keown.
โWe witnessed an absolute shambles of a performance in that second half,โ Keown, now an analyst, told BT Sport.
โThe team selection, the team motivation, the substitutions, the performance โ everything was missing. This is relegation form. Do the club realise how tricky this will now be?
โThere are football people at the top of the club that need to make the decisionsโฆ because otherwise Arsenal will plunge even further down the table.โ
Emery brushed aside questions on whether he would remain in charge if eighth-placed Arsenal fail to win at promoted Norwich City in the Premier League on Sunday.
โI am thinking about the next match and analysing that match and the Europa Leagueโฆ how we can improve and achieve that confidence with the players,โ Emery added.
REUTERS
