[ad_pod ]

Unai Emery insists he did not intend to disrespect Crystal Palace in Arsenal’s 3-2 defeat to the Eagles on Sunday, per The Mirror.

The Gunners missed a golden opportunity to leapfrog Tottenham Hotspur and move into third place in the Premier League.

What’s the word?

Emery’s men fell to an embarrassing defeat at the Emirates.

After beating Napoli to qualify for the Europa League semi-finals, the former PSG boss made seven changes to his team and saw them soundly beaten, with Wilfried Zaha in inspired form.

And Emery insists that the majority of his changes were injury-enforced, instead of coming about as a result of underestimation.

He said, via The Mirror: “We changed because we need to use more players because we have a lot of matches.

“We have had injuries like the one we had to Aaron Ramsey and we need to use a lot of players. Granit Xhaka came off in the second half against Napoli. He could have played today but we didn’t want to take a risk.”

Goals from Christian Benteke, Wilfried Zaha and James McArthur gave Roy Hodgson’s men all three points in north London.

A poor decision

Emery made the wrong call.

At this stage of the season, clubs simply have to play their best XIs, fitness permitting.

That the likes of Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Lucas Torreira and Alex Iwobi all started the game on the bench showed that the former Sevilla chief did not foresee this game to be a difficult one.

He was sorely mistaken and he has subsequently lost any advantage he may have had in the race to qualify for the Champions League.

Chelsea beating Burnley on Monday evening would see the Gunners slip out of the top four altogether.

If that happens, Emery will only have himself to blame.