Arsenal chief Ivan Gazidis says the decision to appoint new manager Unai Emery was made with new football chiefs Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi.

Yesterday, Gazidis insisted he came up with a novel plan, also involving head of football operations Sanllehi and recruitment chief Mislintat, after three weeks of whittling down an eight man short-list before making a decision at the weekend.

“All the way going through the process, Raul and I and Sven spoke to each other as little as possible," said Gazidis, "because we didn't want to pollute each other's viewpoints from the discussions we had had.

“We wanted to come to the discussion fresh when we had been through all eight of the finalist candidates.

“We narrowed it down to three. We spent an entire day discussing among those three.

“At the end of the day, three of us all wrote on a piece of paper, 1, 2, 3, and put them into the middle of the table. And the choices were all, 1, 2, 3, the same. And Unai was at the top of all of our lists."