Arsenal coach Unai Emery, has conceded that qualifying for the Champions League is going to be more difficult for the North London team following their defeat to West Ham.
The Gunners fell to their 5th defeat of the season on Saturday when they were beaten by a Declan Rice goal, meaning that the team have now taken just four points from their last 4 games.
This will make qualifying for the Champions League which is Arsenal’s aim this season that much more difficult.
“Now it’s more difficult, it’s clear,” he told reporters. “I think the most important thing for us is to recover our confidence and be more competitive. We need consistency over 38 matches.
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“Now it isn’t enough at the moment. It’s a bad result. If we can win we are playing against Chelsea [on Saturday] with a three-point maximum distance.
“The big opportunity for us is that we can take in our hands the possibility to be closer to them. This result makes that more difficult.”
Things don’t look like they’ll get easier for Unai Emery’s team as they face off against Chelsea next week and in another couple of weeks also face Manchester City and another date with Manchester United in the FA Cup.
Away form seems to be a big headache for Emery as they have not won in their last 4 away trips. The coach has also seen this and he acknowledged that it’s a considerable problem for him to solve.
“It’s our challenge. Each match is our challenge away,” said the Spaniard. “We are working on that. It’s also the opposition team.
“Like here [at West Ham], for example, they are with their supporters they feel good and strong and can push. We need to take more confidence, more performance collectively, being competitive away to change this moment. We started the season away well, being competitive and winning.
“And then sometimes we are doing but like today [Saturday] we need to do more to be more competitive and to impose our idea and our quality. Today West Ham also have very big players.”