Unai Emery explains Özil and Xhaka subs against Chelsea

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Arsenal manager Unai Emery has explained why he substituted Mesut Ozil and Granit Xhaka in the 3-2 defeat to Chelsea.

The Gunners have been confronted with a difficult start to the Premier League season with their first two games against champions Manchester City and London rivals Chelsea.

Unai Emery’s side were convincingly beaten 2-0 by City last Sunday, but they should have done much better against Chelsea on Saturday.

Arsenal finished the first half with the score level at 2-2, but they could have gone into the second half with five goals on the score sheet Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had scored the two sitters he was gifted at close range – the same goes for Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan who both also missed golden opportunities.

Chelsea managed to punish off the visitors with a goal from Marcos Alonso in the last 10 minutes of the second half at Stamford Bridge.

A second consecutive defeat meant Arsenal had lost each of their opening two league games for the first time since the 1992/93 season – something that never happened under Arsene Wenger.

Emery made proactive changes during the match, including withdrawing Mesut Ozil from the action.

Despite not creating a single chance during his time on the pitch – Ozil has, in fact, never even provided a Premier League assist against Chelsea – Wenger’s successor insists he is happy with the German and says he took him off because he felt his side was defending too deep.

“I am happy with Mesut because he worked hard,” Emery told Arsenal.com.

“I decided to change it because I think we needed a little more of a push in the middle, so that we couldn’t let Chelsea progress easily with the ball.

“We were defending too deep and we needed a push, so for that I brought on Aaron to push up more and recover the ball to continue attacking.

“I am happy with Mesut. With him I am going to do the same work, help him and demand also that he works every day. At the moment he is doing that and I am happy. In the process, he is one player that I am sure is going to have a good season.”

Emery also clarified why Granit Xhaka was replaced by summer signing Lucas Torreira at half-time.

“This is a tactical decision because he also had a yellow card. We didn’t want to take the risk with the yellow card and we wanted to give a chance to other players we have in the middle.”

Arsenal have a slightly easier run of games for the remainder of August and September.

Their next game is against West Ham on Saturday. Emery’s side returns to the Emirates looking for their first win of the season.

The post Unai Emery explains Özil and Xhaka subs against Chelsea appeared first on Squawka News.



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