Emery denies Arsenal communication problems.

Unai Emery insists that his English is good enough to communicate his ideas clearly to his Arsenal players after 18-year-old winger Bukayo Saka claimed 10 days ago that he turns to assistant first-team coach Freddie Ljungberg for clarification when he does not understand the manager.

”Last year on the first day I spoke to them [in] very bad [English], more than today, as you hear in the press conference,” Emery said. “Now my English is, from one to 10, maybe a six. But at six I think the players can understand me. But if not, some help is good.”

Emery assistant Juan Carlos Carcedo generally speaks to the group as a whole, while Ljungberg, first-team coach Pablo Villanueva and goalkeeping coach Javi Garcia work one-to-one. “But it is normally with every player, not only Bukayo Saka. Also, I spoke to Saka alone in my office and prepared sometimes some videos. I have also done videos with English players, Spanish players, German players, French players.”

He has a long way to go before he reaches the native-speaker standard of Hector Bellerin, who arrived at Arsenal from Barcelona eight years ago and spoke confidently at the Oxford Union last year. But he admits that the return of Bellerin to the first-team squad after injury will help both the team’s play on the field and the head coach’s job of it.

Filled by Theresah Mensah.