Unai Emery Praises Calum Chambers Performance Despite 'Ignoring' Positional Instructions
Arsenal manager Unai Emery hailed defender Calum Chambers following his performance in Tuesday night's 5-0 demolition of Nottingham Forest, even though he revealed that the utility did not follow his instructions during the game.
Chambers has struggled for game time since returning from his loan spell at Fulham over the summer. However, he made an impressive impact from the bench during Sunday's 3-2 comeback win over Aston Villa, and he continued his resurgence with a faultless display against Forest.
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Emery was keen to praise the attitude of his player, as well as his ability to play in a number of positions in the team, but joked that Chambers decided to ignore him on Tuesday.
"He helped us in the training, in the dressing room and when you need him to play right-back, centre-back, left-back like tonight, and if we can use him in the midfield also," Emery said in his post-match press conference, as reported by The Express.
"His performance is starting with his attitude and his attitude is amazing. After that is his best position, but tonight for example I was telling him, when he was playing left-back, be calm here, help and support Bukayo [Saka], give the ball to Dani Ceballos and he was overlapping a lot of times with Bukayo! He did one very good pass for the goal with Nelson. He didn't listen to me!”
Tuesday's game also saw a return to action for Rob Holding, Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin – who have all been long-term absentees through injury. Emery was pleased to see the trio back out on the pitch and admitted that he now has to consider his options ahead of next Monday's trip to Old Trafford to face Manchester United.
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"Rob Holding came back after injury and also after injuries, Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin. I think this was a good match, a good result, a good game and with a clean sheet there are a lot of positive things. We can be positive with different options for the next matches."
