Arsenal fans were left fuming with Head Coach Unai Emery when he decided to substitute Kieran Tierney for Sead Kolasinac and overlook Nicolas Pepe when the Gunners were desperately chasing a winning goal.
The Gunners were pegged back by Raul Jimenez’s header after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had put the home side in front after 21 minutes. The match between Arsenal and Wolverhampton Wanderers ended in a 1-1 draw meaning Emery’s side have now surrendered winning positions in consecutive home games.
The club’s faithful have found it difficult to understand a number of the Spaniard’s team selections and substitutions of late and this particular move, in the eyes of most was equally as baffling.
So when we’re up he makes offensive subs and when we’re down he makes defensive subs. OK ????
— Qtn (@qtn68) November 2, 2019
Tried to back emery to the hilt but these last few weeks have shown his knowledge of this team is non existent, bringing on a LB when we are in need of a goal my god
— Jamie Lawrence (@Jammielozzaa) November 2, 2019
What a waste of a sub. Chasing a goal bring on Kolasinac. Same with the Saka sub made no sense
— Don Lacavelli (@akashmaroof) November 2, 2019
Unai needs a goal and does this????
— MattS27 (@m_sharpp) November 2, 2019
Absolute state of that sub. Get Emery out of the club.
— Stuart Robinson (@stuartdlk) November 2, 2019
Haha what a joke of a sub that was.. and removing Torreira when we fighting to hold our lead?? Poor from Unai…
— Ubaradia (@Ubaradia1) November 2, 2019
I give up.
— Pain In The Arsenal (@PainInThArsenal) November 2, 2019
What do we think?
Tierney looked visibly tired towards the end of Saturday’s draw with Wolves. Emery demands an awful lot from his full-backs and likely felt he would get more from a fresh Sead Kolasinac going into the late stages of the game. Arguably, Tierney could have survived the remaining three minutes plus stoppage time and it would have been more beneficial for Arsenal to have introduced another attacker but that isn’t the way Emery saw it.
It’s important to note this isn’t an overreaction to one questionable substitution. Patience with Emery has been wearing thin for quite some time now with many frustrated by his negative approach at times – this change only strengthened the position of some of the Head Coach’s harshest critics.