"It's far too early to judge him. He definitely needs three or four transfer windows to make this team his own."
Sunday 12 August 2018 20:21, UK
Renault Super Sunday panellists Gary Neville, Graeme Souness and Alex Scott had their say on Unai Emery's Arsenal debut after it ended in a 2-0 defeat to Man City.
The Spaniard began his Premier League career in front of his home fans at the Emirates, but goals from Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva saw the champions take all three points.
But the trio believe that it is too early to judge Emery and his impact at Arsenal, with Neville insisting the head coach needs a few more transfer windows to shape his squad.
"I don't think this is short term. The recruitment has been so bad here over the last three or four years, it's going to take two or three, maybe four transfer windows to sort this out," he said on Renault Super Sunday.
"Emery is a great coach and he needs three or four transfer windows. I don't care who the coach would be, you could bring Pep Guardiola in here, even with the biggest transfer budget and one of the best coaches in the world, it's going to take him more than that.
"It's too early [to judge him]. He's trying to rewind 20 years of culture, training, the mindset of everything and what you saw today was Emery, who is the head coach of the team, but a performance of a team who were still playing the same way.
"I watch those players and they look one-paced to me, they don't look like they're accelerating the game. You look at City going forward and the speed that's in their game.
"Emery will want a lot more intensity in his team and to be fair, these players have played in their comfort zone for the last two or three years and Arsene Wenger has been the fault of that, according to everybody, but the reality is the players have now got no-one else to look at. He'll get rid of those players if they don't start playing at a higher intensity.
"I think they started quite early in the second half but it's far too early to judge him. He definitely needs three or four transfer windows to make this team his own."
But former Arsenal Women defender Scott - making her debut as a Super Sunday panellist - saw an improvement in the mentality of the players, while Souness also hoped Emery would be given a chance.
Scott said: "Arsenal have had a good, solid pre-season, but having that and then coming here to play the champions, it's totally different.
"He [Emery] said he was disappointed because he wanted to see more belief but I actually think when it was 1-0, Arsenal showed more character because at times last season, they would have gone in at half-time 3-0 down."
Souness added: "Time is not the manager's friend, whether he gets four transfer windows or not, he will need time.
"I think he can work on the players he's got, make them better and more willing to do the hard yards and hope there's something coming through. Hopefully he has another budget at Christmas time to work with."
