Interview

'You scratch the surface, and he just goes deeper'

It's been widely reported that Unai Emery's forensic attention to detail during the interview process was one of the key qualities that played a part in his appointment as our new head coach.



 

But what exactly did that look like? Our chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, reveals the depth that the Spaniard went into when discussing our squad.

 

"What was really impressive was when you scratched the surface to go deeper and deeper and deeper," he told Arsenal Player. "If we were speaking about one of our young players, if we targeted Ainsley Maitland-Niles for example, Unai knows Ainsley.

 

"He’s watched him, he’s familiar with his patterns of play, his capabilities, he’s very excited about his potential and was able to talk about how excited he was to work with Ainsley, to develop him as a player.

 

"Very specifically, when you asked the follow-up question and the follow-up question and the follow-up question, you’d get more and more depth about how exactly he would do that, exactly how him and his team would work with an individual player to develop them into the best player they can possibly be and also within the team dynamic.

 

"There are a lot of platitudes in the game of football, a lot, and people can speak at a surface level very easily to sound confident and impressive. What’s impressive to me is when you scratch through that and you get deeply involved in what exactly they mean."