The Gunners have conceded three times as many Premier League goals as Manchester City and Liverpool this season — 15 compared to just five for the top two.
They have managed only two clean sheets in their opening 12 games and continue to offer encouragement to their opponents, despite Emery’s determination to tighten up at the back.
The Arsenal boss claimed this week he inherited a team from Arsene Wenger which had lost its defensive structure.
But his hopes of orchestrating an immediate improvement have been undermined by a frustrating run of injuries which have prevented him working with a settled back four.
Ahead of Sunday's visit to high-flying Bournemouth, he said: “Defensively we need more. We need to get better.
“I like it that my team scores a lot and that a lot of different players have the capacity for goals. It’s very important to keep this.
“But we also need to do better in the defensive moments and give fewer possibilities for the opponents to score.
“Sometimes I feel we are playing at the same level as the top four and other times not, so we need to improve things.
“The performances at the moment are not bad and 16 games unbeaten is good.
“But we have drawn our last three games and that is not good enough.
“We need to start winning again to be closer to the top four.”
Arsenal will find themselves 11 points behind City if the leaders win today, and six behind fourth-placed Spurs if their arch-rivals can inflict Chelsea’s first defeat.
And while their own unbeaten run is admirable, Emery knows his team cannot afford to drop any further behind in the race for Champions League qualification.
They had the chance to close the gap when Chelsea were held by Everton two weeks ago, but could only manage a 1-1 draw at home to Wolves later that day.
And with Spurs and Chelsea facing each other on Saturday afternoon, this weekend's trip to the south coast is another opportunity they cannot afford to miss.
Emery will be without injured defenders Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal, Stephan Lichtsteiner and Konstantinos Mavropanos though.
And he has also had to cope without Hector Bellerin, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Sead Kolasinac, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and keeper Petr Cech at various stages of the season.
Arsenal’s Spanish boss said: “We have had a lot of different injuries.
“Koscielny was a big injury and Mavropanos has also been out all season.
“Then we have had small injuries like Nacho, Kolasinac and Lichtsteiner.”
The good news for Emery is influential skipper Koscielny is finally on the verge of a first-team return.
He suffered a serious Achilles injury against Atletico Madrid in the Europa League semi-final in May.
Emery said: “Koscielny started to train with us one month ago and the good news is he is now close to starting again.
“I have watched him closely during the last weeks of the international break and he is feeling good.
“This weekend we will decide the plan for his return.
“We are thinking for him to start some minutes and maybe on Monday he can play with the Under-23s.”
Emery knows his team are now entering a crucial phase of the campaign, playing two games a week right through to the New Year.
He added: “This is my first experience of not stopping in the Christmas period.
“Everyone I know with experience of the Premier League tells me this is the most important two months.
“We are in the next phase of the Europa League but we still have games against Vorskla and Qarabag and want to finish first in the group.
“We are also playing in the Carabao Cup against Tottenham but for this period our priority is the Premier League.
“There are a lot of matches and we are going to make changes and give a lot of players the possibility to help us.”
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