Press conference

The verdict on Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan shone as we brushed aside Everton at the Emirates on Saturday.

The former scored on his debut and the latter marked his first home appearance for us with a hat-trick of assists.

Here’s what the boss made of their contributions:

on Aubameyang’s debut…

I think that the quality of his movement was excellent, the quality of his finishing was excellent. But he is not completely at his best physically. He still has some work to do physically.

on the price for Aubameyang - and whether it is good for the current market…

I think so, yes. Overall I believe that for that quality of striker is, on today’s market, a reasonable price.

on Aubameyang’s positivity…

He looks always to give a problem to the defenders by his movement. I feel that once he is in front of you, it is very difficult to catch him back. I liked the quality of his movement, I must say. He is always looking to go in to spaces and it is very difficult for defenders to cover. When we know him better and understand him better, I think he will be more dangerous.

on Mkhitaryan’s home debut…

He is a good link player and he works very hard as well, you know. Overall, I think he looked well-accepted by the rest of the team and was understanding very well how we want to play.

on it being a surprise that he ended up deciding to leave United so soon…

He didn’t play there so I was not too surprised. He was not playing at Manchester United and they got one more player who plays in a similar position with Sanchez.

on why it wasn’t working for him at United…

I am not responsible for Manchester’s decisions. I am responsible for Arsenal’s decisions - that is enough for me. They had their reasons. They have a world-class player in Sanchez and that obstructed him.

on a great home debut…

I do not know, I have not exactly the 1,300 games in my memory but there are some good debuts. I don’t know if that’s better, the only thing I can say is that it was a convincing debut that shows that he has the level to play with us.

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