Friday 5 October 2018 06:40, UK
Unai Emery praised Arsenal's continued development as they maintained their 100 per cent start in the Europa League with a 3-0 victory at Qarabag.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos, 18-year-old Emile Smith Rowe and Matteo Guendouzi scored their first goals for the club as the Gunners registered an eighth straight win in all competitions.
Arsenal were indebted to Bernd Leno throughout a sloppy performance, though, with the German goalkeeper preserving their lead on three fine saves.
But head coach Emery welcomed the test his side navigated in Azerbaijan, saying: "I'm very happy because the opposition was at a good level and with their support, they demanded a lot of us over 90 minutes in the defensive moments.
Emery experiment produces mixed results
"For moments, we lost our position in possession but it's good because the team learned to suffer when we needed to.
"The victory is good for our confidence, for our mentality, and it helps us grind out results in difficult matches, to keep our idea to continue to push, to make the counter with the ball.
"When we lost this, I think the team learned to suffer and then show our quality in our moments with our individual quality."
Having lost his first two games as Arsenal manager, Emery can secure a ninth consecutive victory when his side travel to Fulham on Sunday.
Asked whether Arsenal would be in good physical shape at Craven Cottage just three days after their exploits in Baku, the Gunners boss added: "For us it's not a problem to play on Thursday and then on Sunday.
"We want to play a lot of matches and a lot of competitions. We also want to give them the players the chances, the opportunities to play, to give them confidence, responsibility and rhythm like today for all our players.
"Today, the players who sometimes don't play played, and for us it's very important on Sunday to produce the best performance.
"But then also, maybe, players who played today can play on Sunday too. We can do that with some players."
