Unai Emery has lauded Arsenal's character after they came from behind twice to beat Aston Villa 3-2 at the Emirates on Sunday.

John McGinn gave the visitors an unexpected lead in the first-half, who were soon ahead with men on the pitch after Ainsley Maitland-Niles was a shown a second-yellow card.

Fortunately for the Gunners, Nicolas Pepe's converted from the penalty spot to score his first goal for the club and level the scores, only for Wesley to restore Villa's lead with a poacher's goal a minute later.

But it wasn't over for Arsenal, as substitute Callum Chambers made it 2-2 after 81 minutes before Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's superb free-kick completed the comeback.

Speaking after the game, Emery said: "I think here we are doing and creating good spirit with our supporters and the players, they are feeling that.

"But it's first our commitment, our behaviour, fighting for each ball and also taking some risks for attacking and above all we are using and when we were one less player.

"That is good. Today is two things for me: the first is that character, that connection with the supporters, and after this, how we can improve defensively and throughout the first 11.

"Really we lost more balls than we wanted and this is the one situation we didn't have the control over in the first 30 minutes like we wanted. It's one thing for me to improve and to work with the players.

"With that victory it's better and after last week against Watford it was competitive and today, we need to take a good balance in our emotion, in our mentality but today I think we can be happy and it is one step ahead."