We Must Defend Well An Attack Too – Unai Emery

Unai Emery is confident that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s scoring form will return quickly as long as his teammates continue creating chances.

“I am sure they are going to score if we create a lot of chances in the game,” Emery said at a news conference on Thursday. “Maybe the players cannot score three good chances in one match and on another day, I am sure they are going to do maybe the same chances in one match and score three. Aubameyang is a player who, in his career, has scored a lot and he is going to do that here also.”

Emery wants to see a different type of performance than against Manchester City and Chelsea, though, saying his team were not able to control the game as much as he would have liked against those opponents.

The new head coach wants to play a similar possession-based style deployed by his predecessor, Arsene Wenger, but with a more aggressive high press when they are without the ball.

“In the two first matches, we didn’t have the control enough — only in some moments,” Emery said. “Saturday is another match. Tactically, it will be different. It will be demanding and I want to have more control to find the win in this match.”

Emery said he will continue using two different formations depending on the opponent — either a 4-3-3 as against City or a 4-2-3-1 like he used at Chelsea — but that he is not about to play with two strikers up front, even though that would allow him to pair Aubameyang with Alexandre Lacazette.

“At the moment, I think we need to have the control with the possession, with the positioning on the pitch, with more players inside,” Emery said. “And after this possession, to do the attacking moments and defending moments with this balance. But, it is one possibility to continue in our progress and in one moment to try also to play with two scorers.”