Emery on the Arsenal captaincy and his objectives for the season

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Arsenal’s Premier League campaign gets underway on Sunday as the Gunners head to St James’ Park to take on Newcastle United. Ahead of this fixture, Unai Emery faced the press to give his verdict on the state of his squad before the new season. 

As quoted by the Arsenal official website, the Spanish coach has made his objectives for the new season clear. Emery said, “really our ambition and our motivation is to do the best we possibly can in every competition. The Premier League is the most important competition…It’s the first way for us to achieve our targets and objectives to be in the top four”.

Emery is right to identify Champions League qualification as his side’s primary target. The Gunners are now in their third consecutive season outside of Europe’s elite competition. Failure to reverse that trend this season will almost certainly result in Emery being relieved of his duties. 

If the Gunners are to have a successful campaign, Emery needs to be able to rely upon his leaders at the Emirates Stadium to deliver. The manager likes his squad to include five captains. Following the departures of Petr Cech and Laurent Koscielny, only three of last season’s leadership group remain in north London: Granit Xhaka, Nacho Monreal and Mesut Ozil. 

Emery is clear that he would like two new leaders in his group to be established. The Spaniard said, “I want to be with my squad clearly to have two more. At the moment we have three captains and I think they have the capacity to give us possibilities as captain”. Who those two new captains will be remains to be seen. The likes of Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin both stand a good chance of being considered.