Unai Emery paid a special visit to an Emirates business lunch during day two of our pre-season tour to Singapore.
Between training sessions, our head coach joined chief executive Ivan Gazidis and chief commercial officer Vinai Venkatesham to address a number of Emirates guests at our team hotel.
Scroll down to read the full transcript of what he had to say:
Unai, how much are you enjoying your first tour and your first experience of Singapore?
Hello everybody. It’s the first time I’ve come here and the first time I’ve met you with the club. For me, all the people within the club and the people we’ve met here have been great with us. We’ve had a lot of good meetings and I want to give every Arsenal supporter a memorable experience that they can enjoy with us. I am improving my English but it’s still not the best! I can and I want to improve it. On my first day with Ivan I was speaking English for three hours, and I want to continue to get better. In a few months I want to be able to speak very, very clearly with you.
What have been your first impressions of Arsenal?
It’s great, it’s a big club. It’s got the history, the present and we want to create the future. Arsenal is a London club, an English club, but every day I am seeing Arsenal supporters around the world who identify with and enjoy watching this team. I am very excited, very happy, and we are very, very committed to you, to this club, the history and the present. Every day when I wake up, I have a big motivation to start the day with my work, with the fans, and the preparation for the start of the season. After our pre-season friendlies, we are going to play two big games and now we are getting closer to starting the first big match. Every player and member of staff is focused on starting the Premier League season against Manchester City.
How much are you looking forward to that first game against Manchester City?
Everybody who is working at this club is working towards that game and we want to play a good game for everybody. It’s a great rivalry and to start at Emirates Stadium against Manchester City is the first important focus for us. With all the energy of the players and the supporters, we know we can start the season with a big performance against a big team.
How would you describe your style of play?
Each match, you are looking for every player to transmit intensity, aggression, to show that they want to win and are prepared to work hard to win. We want to do that with style, with a personality, with protagonists on the pitch. We want every player to create things and find things when they’re on the ball. When we are without the ball, we also want to show ambition to recover the ball quickly. We want to demonstrate that not only in every match, but also in every training session. We want our players to be energetic, full of action with or without the ball and as protagonists on the pitch doing things.
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