Arsenal team are already reaping the rewards of Unai Emery's 'intense' style, says Alex Iwobi

Reaping the rewards | Arsenal's Alex Iwobi
Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Jamie Teather22 August 2018

Alex Iwobi says Unai Emery’s far more intense methods at Arsenal are already reaping rewards despite their worst ever start to a Premier League season.

Emery is the first new manager in the Gunners dugout for over 22 years, and despite two defeats from their first two league fixtures, a number of Arsenal players have come out and praised the new manager's impact on the group.

The Gunners have begun their campaign with arguably their toughest two fixtures of the season. Reigning Premier League champions Manchester City were the visitors to the Emirates on the opening day, before Emery's side slumped to their second defeat in 7 days when a late Marcos Alonso goal handed Chelsea victory at Stamford Bridge .

That being said, Iwobi - who scored in the defeat at Chelsea, has joined his Arsenal teammate Shkodran Mustafi in publicly praising the managers work since he arrived in the summer.

"It's exciting times to be fair," Iwobi told Arsenal Player. "Everybody's enjoying and buying into the new ideas. For me personally, I'm enjoying the new sessions, the new training methods and the new ideas, so I'm enjoying my time with him.

In Pictures | Chelsea vs Arsenal | 18/08/2018

1/36

"He demands a lot. He's a lot more intense, a lot of high pressing and keeping the ball so that it benefits us if we have the ball. It's good for us, especially the attackers who like to have the ball a lot.

"It's making me feel a bit sharper, I'm doing things with a bit more intensity. It's not just for me, though, I feel like I'm helping the team a lot more. It's benefitting me a lot more."

Iwobi made 26 appearances and scored three goals for Arsenal last season in the Premier League, and the 22-year-old is keen to work hard and establish himself under the new manager.

"Whenever something in the system changes, you have to prove yourself again. But wherever you go, you have to prove that you're better than whoever else is on the team. At a team like Arsenal, that's always going to be hard so I always have to be on it in training and matches.

"I've got to be different. It's going to be hard because we've got so many attackers and so many world-class players, so I've just got to prove that I'm on that level or as good as them so that I can be ahead of them, which is my aim."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in