Unai Emery is hoping his Arsenal side show their personality on Saturday when they take on Chelsea.
Emery is of course the first new manager to take charge of Arsenal in 22 years, and his tenure at the Emirates couldn’t have got off to a harder start, with the fixture computer dishing out tough ties against Manchester City and Chelsea to kick off their Premier League campaign.
They unsurprisingly lost the first of those games against Pep Guardiola’s champions, but Emery is hoping his side can put up more of a fight against Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
“Saturday is a very good option to show our personality, our capacity against a big team like Chelsea, and away from home,” Emery said in his pre-match press conference on Thursday.
“[When you’re] away, you have an opportunity to change last year’s difficulties when the team played away.
“On Saturday we need to be a more competitive team on the pitch to change these away performances.
“We played two or three weeks ago against Chelsea [in pre-season], but with different players on the pitch, to Saturday – Hazard, Kante, Giroud, Kovacic.
“The personality we want to play with will be the same in this match. It will be different because both teams could have different players on the pitch, but it’s a good reference match to work with ahead of this Saturday against Chelsea.”