Arsenal chief Raul Sanllehi admits Unai Emery's willingness to work inside a management structure was key to him landing the job.

Training is more intense and many players have spoken of the attention to the finer details of positioning, in and out of possession, that Emery is drilling into them.

Midfielder Granit Xhaka, for example, has said he already feels a far better player under his new Spanish boss.

And Sanllehi added: “We wanted leadership, a team player and someone with a proven record for developing youth talent.

“So then we were down to a very short list. We had very in-depth meetings with them all and asked them to present their projects of how they saw Arsenal in the future.

“They were all very impressive. There was no one in that final list who we thought, 'He's not at the highest level — what's he doing here?'

“Those meetings were initially held with myself, Ivan Gazidis and Sven Mislintat.

“But in the final process we also included contract negotiator Huss Fahmy and Jaeson Rosenfeld from StatDNA just to cover the whole thing.

“So there was a team of five of us deciding on this. And we unanimously agreed at the first round that Unai Emery was the person that ideally would include all the dimensions we wanted to lead this new project.

“Of course, the Kroenkes had to give the OK but our recommendation to the board was immediately accepted and we are very happy with this decision.

“The feeling we all have from talking with the players and supporters, from seeing the atmosphere created at London Colney and the Emirates, is that we made a very good choice."