Gary Neville Hails Brilliant Arsenal and Unai Emery

Gary Neville has given Arsenal great laudation in a verdict he passed after our shabby 1-0 win over Watford on Monday night.

The Gunners went ahead through a 10th-minute Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang goal emanating from an error from the host goalkeeper, Ben Foster, in his attempt to clear a back pass.

Obviously, it was not a deserved victory going by the manner in which the team fared as a whole. The display was so poor to the extent that the red card received by Troy Deeney for an elbow challenge of Lucas Torreira just eleven minutes into the game did not show as the tie went on.

However, they were able to get all three points to go ahead of Chelsea and Manchester United on the league log. Another positive was the first away clean sheet recorded for the season.

Arsenal are struggling but Neville in his assessment rated them ahead of rivals. The ex-Red Devils defender is impressed by the way Unai Emery has used a shaky team to get to this stage as the Spaniard seems to be doing better than teams with better players.

Speaking on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football, Neville said: “I think I said before the game [against Watford], for them [Arsenal] to be where they are with a game in hand over Chelsea, navigating the Europa League… we’ve always talked about how difficult it is to play Thursday and Sundays. 

“I think it’s a brilliant performance when you think of Chelsea and Manchester United have spent a fortune. 

“Chelsea have the better squad, with Eden Hazard. Arsenal are nowhere near that. 

“When you look at that Arsenal team… there’s a lot of questions to have answered. 

“You think of Aaron Ramsey leaving, of Mesut Ozil, the defenders, the midfielders still don’t look right, you’re not convinced about the goalkeeper, the full-backs look like they could change every week and yet, he [Unai Emery] is getting that level of performance out them. I think it’s a brilliant performance."

Arsenal are on course to progress to the semi-final of the Europa League having beat Napoli 2-0 in the first leg. The reverse fixture holds in Italy today and their aim will be to replicate what they did at the Emirates Stadium last week.