Fittingly Unai Emery’s overture as Arsenal’s head coach was high tempo and demanding. A whirlwind first day began on a transatlantic flight and flipped straight from the red eye into a burst of meeting, greeting and looking the part in the newly fitted club suit. For the Spaniard first impressions played a big part in his successful audition for the job and he set about making new ones as he introduced himself. The energy he likes to transmit was on show.

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Upstairs in the directors’ box lounge at the Emirates Stadium he tried to expand on what makes him tick. It was evident that the way he will communicate with his players is full on. From the way he spoke – making a determined effort to explain himself in English in his clear, booming voice – to the way he amplified his points with expressive gestures, his eyes darting briskly around the room to try not to miss anything, Emery will be an altogether different kind of presence around the squad. Arsène Wenger tended to be more cerebral, more observant, more about guiding someone than pushing him.Emery’s brand of charisma comes across as animated, spirited and direct.

“I think the most important thing is to connect with people and have those personal relationships,” Emery said. “Heart to heart, head to head. The heart transmits emotion, the head transmits the intelligence. So it’s really important to have that connection both on a personal and collective level. What you are looking for is a shared experience. It’s true that you get the famous egos in football but that is true of top players and players who are not so good. I’m a coach that has come from second division, gone through to the first division, coached at PSG and now at Arsenal. And really the essence of it all is people.”

Emery has begun to study the personalities he will begin to work with over the summer. Arsenal are not overly represented at the World Cup, so he will soon be trying to make those connections with a large proportion of the squad, the vehicle through which he will introduce his philosophy. While paying due respect to the “love for possession” he saw as part of the club’s heritage, he also stresses how his football ideal is also about intensity and pressing.

That is another departure from Wenger’s focus on expression with the ball and it will be interesting to see how quickly Emery can effect a stylistic transformation. “I like to win the ball back as quickly as possible,” he said. “It’s about two things: possession and pressing.

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“Football is a demanding and difficult sport. What we want to do is not fear any team, either here in the Premier League or in Europe, and our objective is to be among the best and to beat the best. I’m the type of coach who has always worked really hard – not because I do it better than anyone else but because that is what I believe the most important thing is.” He talked about “that desire to be better” like a kind of compulsion, adding: “I’ve never seen anything handed out for free in football.”

The 46-year-old looked effortlessly relaxed and confident in himself. He had that air of being comfortable in his own skin that comes with having the balance of experience and motivation to feel sure he can do this job well. When Wenger started at Arsenal (at the same age Emery is now) he described himself as “full of hope, full of belief as well” and Emery emits the same vibes.

For all the revolution that began when Arsenal last appointed a new manager 22 years ago, a rarity in bringing a foreign manager into the English game, this announcement was a snapshot of how the football landscape has changed. It was an entirely international affair. In London Arsenal were introduced to a man from the Basque country who had been interviewed by a panel of football executives from South Africa, Germany and Spain, having impressed an American owner, to be shown around a stadium named after a Middle Eastern airline on the day the club unveiled record-breaking shirt sleeve sponsors from Rwanda.

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Emery took it all in his steady stride. He had been in contact with the Arsenal hierarchy while in charge of Paris Saint-Germain, attending the first interview two days after the French Cup final and with two Ligue 1 games remaining (nothing untoward as his departure from the Parc des Princes had been sealed and made public). The three big meetings he had with Arsenal went from strength to strength, making him the unanimous choice. His blend of personality and pedigree, and a willingness to work collaboratively with the head honchos, shone through. Emery has a load more meetings in the diary for the rest of this week where backroom staff and aims for the transfer window are on the agenda.



For all Ivan Gazidis’s talk of a new structure with shared responsibility Emery undoubtedly carries the status of Arsenal’s new figurehead. Out with hashtag MerciArsène and in with WelcomeUnai. There were sudden changes made around the place, making sure the lifesize cutout of Wenger that had been in the tunnel was taken down in time for this unveiling and Emery’s brushed steel nameplate erected outside the head coach’s office. Over to the new man in town to show what he is made of.