Arsenal Not Better Off Despite Pepe, Tierney, Luiz Signings - Unai Emery

Unai Emery does not believe Arsenal are better than they were last season even after their hugely influential transfer window this summer.

The North London outfit broke their transfer record to sign Nicolas Pepe and made several other signings including 3 defenders. Of course, we have to take into consideration, the players who departed as well.

Aaron Ramsey’s free move to Juventus left a huge gap in midfield which is expected to be temporarily filled by the loan signing of Ceballos. Laurent Koscielny, Petr Cech, Alex Iwobi have all been replaced which begs the question on why Emery feels this way?

When asked if his squad is better off this season, the Spaniard said, “I don’t know. Our idea is to improve on last year, to improve our work, improve our players, improve our challenge, to improve in achieving our target but I don’t know if we are better or not.

“I’m not more confident but I have more options. I think on Saturday I can have more options in some positions in the team to decide the first XI and the players on the bench.

“But really I could play the same players as last week or on Saturday I could play some who were less in the possibility to play last week because they trained less. This match on Saturday I will have more options, I will have closer some players giving us their best performance.”

Arsenal are due to face Burnley for their first home game of the 2019/20 season. The Gunners received a significant boost with several stars returning to full match fitness.

Emery added, “It is the reason for me now for example, David Luiz is ready to play on Saturday, Pepe is closer to play in the first XI and really we are seeing that improvement in each training.

“Ceballos can be with more minutes if we need him and also training with us are Mesut (Ozil) and Sead (Kolasinac), it is more important to have more options and be competitive in the first XI and on the bench.”

See Also: Arsenal Top 10 Goal Scorers Of All Time