Arsenal news: Why win over BATE Borisov felt so important for Unai Emery

EMIRATES STADIUM, LONDON — Cancel the banners. Call off the planes. The embryonic #EmeryOut campaign will have to be aborted, temporarily at least, with Arsenal’s Europa League specialist manager guiding his side to a comfortable 3-0 victory over Bate Borisov.

Unlike the agricultural surface and sub-zero temperatures faced in Belarus in that surprise defeat last week Arsenal had no excuses here with the lush Emirates turf glistening on a warm evening that felt suspiciously like the start of spring in north London.

The home side made the most of those favourable conditions, beginning brightly and breaking the deadlock after just four minutes with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang gliding past full-back Aleksandr Filipovic, curling the ball into that horrible area between the last line of defence and goalkeeper and forcing centre-half Zakhar Volkov to shin it into his own net.

Messy rhythm

Chances continued to come thick and fast for Arsenal in the opening stages, with Alex Iwobi curling one inches wide of the far post before Henrikh Mkhitaryan then fired over from the edge of the box with less than 10 minutes gone.

Arsenal, like they have for most of the past decade, looked far more comfortable in their opponents’ final third than their own and soon gifted Bate two opportunities which a higher calibre of player than Maksim Skavysh and Stanislav Dragun may well have buried.

After that early panic the game settled into a messy sort of rhythm, Arsenal dominating possession but lacking any real fluency going forward, with a misplaced pass here and a skewed shot there.

Relief

While there is a sense that Emery will be afforded more patience at Arsenal than his counterpart across town at Chelsea, this victory nevertheless felt important with the half-dozen double fist-pumps and screams of delight as Shkodran Mustafi powered in the second from a corner and substitute Sokratis Papastathopoulos replicated for the third midway through the second-half revealing the manager’s relief from the weight of growing tension lifted.

Arsenal’s season started brightly and, until Christmas, the transition from the Wenger-era into this new age of Emery had been running smoother than expected.

Victory over Qarabag in the final group game of this competition in December extended an unbeaten run to 22 matches but since then their form has been horribly patchy. Defeat in Borisov last week was Arsenal’s seventh in 14 matches, a run which has seen them exit both domestic cup competitions and slip behind a resurgent Manchester United in the league.

The exit from a third cup, especially at the hands of lowly Bate Borisov, would have been near unthinkable.

‘Bigger fight’

“It was a good test today, a good challenge,” Emery said after the final whistle. “After the first match, it was very important we came here and continued in this competition.

“We needed to show a bigger fight, we needed to continue [to push] when we scored one, two, three because if they score one goal it can be dangerous.

“We showed responsibility and a good performance for 90 minutes. Now our focus is back on the Premier League.”

The road ahead

Up next are two winnable home fixtures against Southampton and Bournemouth in quick succession followed by pivotal games against Big Six rivals Tottenham and Manchester United.

Should Arsenal fail to pick up a decent total of points from those games then the race for fourth place will begin to look like one they cannot win.

Nevertheless, there are few teams in the last 16 of the Europa League Arsenal should truly fear, particularly if they can hit some of that early season form and Emery rediscovers the touch which saw him win this competition three times in a row.

It could, therefore, be Arsenal’s most viable route back into the Champions League.