David Luiz, the Arsenal’s £8m highly experienced centre half under Unai Emery looked woeful and completely out of place. Many wondered why the Brazilian was signed by Arsenal when they have a better option in the market..
The 32-year-old David Luiz shinned like a £50m star at the back last night in Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Manchester United, which deservedly won him the BT Sport’s man of the match award.
Talking to BT Sport before collecting his man of the match award, Luiz gave a brutally honest post-match interview you will hardly hear from a footballer.
It is not all the time you hear a professional player at the highest height of the game open up like Luiz did last night.
Luiz told BT’s Des Kelly: “I think it was great. We were great in the first half and showed a maturity in the second.
“We have to be honest and admit physically we are not ready, but you have to show heart and this team is ready to change a lot of things.
“We showed that today and we are going to do big things in the future.”
The Arsenal team looked visibly delighted at full-time, with Luiz stating that Arteta’s new energy is already making a huge difference.
“Mikel is a great coach,” he added. “He knows football, he was a great player. He brings things where I believe in his philosophy & I think he can improve every single player.
“And in life when you are happy results can be different. If you work with happiness and believing what you are doing it is totally different. Our season started very bad but things can change.”
David Luiz team mate Sokratis Papastathopoulos stood next to Luiz for the interview and the Greek defender also threw some jibes at Emery when questioned.
He said: “We know that we are not ready to fight for 90 minutes & for this second-half today, we struggled, but I think every player now likes the way that we play. The fun is back. We have to try more & play better & better every game.”
From all indications, the players clearly were not happy with Emery and his system. His tactical formation always get the players confused.
In his post match interview last night, Mikel Arteta says he lost his voice talking to his players during match.
The Gunners boss celebrated his first victory at the helm with a comfortable 2-0 win over United at the Emirates with first half goals from Pepe and Sokratis which caged the rampaging Manchester United side.
Mikel Arteta in his post match interview : “I said to them without you guys I won’t be able to do it,”
“You have to open the door and believe I can bring something different to the club.
“We need all the staff to believe as well and if we do that day by day, it will take a long way and the process will not be easy and there will be ups and downs, but they bought into this.
“That is my feeling, they want to do it and they are starting to enjoy. Hopefully it is a start.”
Arteta has been getting positive reactions out of his players since he took over although he admits shouting instructions from the touchline is already taken its toll on him.
“It’s much more stressful as a manager. I lost my voice talking to them (the players), but I’m very pleased and mostly for them and as well as the fans.
“I am so happy we turned it around at the stadium and I can see smiley faces and the energy again. I see people standing and that is what I want.” He said.
In the end, some may say Luiz and Sokratis ‘threw Emery to the gutter ‘, but they were probably expressing their months of frustration under Unai Emery.
The big question is why did the Arsenal board decided to continue with Emery for so long and even gave him huge funds to buy players last summer?
