With Arsenal’s Champions League aspirations teetering on the precipice going into a week when both the top-four and the Europa League routes hang in the balance, Unai Emery is urging his team to wipe the frowns off their faces. Positive thinking is the order of the day. So, when he spotted one of his players looking particularly dejected as the squad regrouped at London Colney on Friday morning after a demoralising loss in Rennes, Emery decided it was not the best time for a tête-à-tête. Right now, he simply does not want to come into contact with any negative vibes.
“I want the players to help me with big positive energy,” he says. “One player was worse than me, more down than me, and I said to him: ‘Let’s speak tomorrow as you are more sad than me.’ I want to listen to players with positive energy. I want to hear them say: ‘We can do it on Sunday.’” He shakes his fist for emphasis.
These five days feel pivotal, with the Manchester United juggernaut thundering into town before a second-leg mission to overturn that two-goal deficit inflicted by Rennes in the first leg of their last-16 tie. It might feel as if they have a slippery eel in their hands but Emery wants his team to relish keeping a strong hold of it. “Our target is to play in the Champions League and we know it is not easy,” he concedes. “We have two possibilities and with this responsibility the players are optimists. We can come with positive spirit and do it.”
A glance at the Premier League table tells you that statistically Arsenal and Manchester United are not far off toe-to-toe this season. One point in it. Similar goal difference. But over more than 24 hours of European football in midweek a chasm between them was stretched in terms of morale and burning ambition.
United’s swell of euphoria was encapsulated in an already celebrated photograph of Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Sir Alex Ferguson and Eric Cantona in Paris. It was necessary to twirl all the way to the other end of the football happiness spectrum to find Arsenal’s players traipsing gloomily through Rennes airport.
They were so quiet the only soundtrack was provided by their own footsteps and a few catcalls thrown by the handful of travelling fans who were being kept at a safe distance so the team could be whisked through security.
The capacity to shake off setbacks comes with the territory in elite sport. Even though Arsenal made it home from Brittany around midnight so it was not too great an interruption to their regular rhythms, Emery found it hard to sleep. “It is an opportunity to learn how one match can go in 90 minutes – you can control the first 40 minutes and you can break it with one action, with a red card, one less player.
“In the hours after a match like that, it’s not easy for me. But I came back the next morning with a big spirit. With a big confidence for Sunday first and also for this week. I try to enjoy each day. In training, preparing for the match, even in defeat – I try! I am looking forward to seeing our reaction.”
Part of the frustration with the collapse in Rennes is that Arsenal had, after a very erratic run of form, begun to find some rhythm. At the start of this calendar year their instability felt endemic as they alternated, lurching from win to loss to win to loss, for six and a half weeks. No wonder it has been so tricky to figure out the Emery way, as the path was a constant zigzag.
A more stable period recently had allowed some green shoots of collective confidence to sprout. Three comfortable wins in a row (caveat: against Bate Borisov, Southampton and Bournemouth, but it was something) were followed by a draw at Tottenham that could have yielded more, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang having his late penalty saved.
Now Arsenal have to respond again, and against an opponent whose confidence and brio was loud enough to keep ears ringing across Europe for most of the week. United also bring an extra edge, having inflicted a heavy defeat in the FA Cup a few weeks ago, one of those moments that pumped more energy into the Solskjær belief system to make United feel like everything is suddenly plausible for them.
Is there a different way Arsenal can try to stem those killer counterattacks? “We know they are doing very well. We need the players tactically to play well in the match,” Emery says.
That FA Cup tie is the big blot on Arsenal’s otherwise exemplary recent home form. They have won their last eight on the trot in the Premier League. Emery’s rallying call is to remember that, and to make sure they only think positive.