Emery on Martinez

The Argentinean goalkeeper kept out Jeff Reine-Adelaide’s spot kick, and our head coach feels that it a fine trait to have from a stopper.

It’s a good 90 minutes, we used different players and we also started with a lot of young players to give them chances in what we knew was a difficult match away against a good team. It’s good to know how we can respond with them. Also, we used different players in the second half to give them rhythm. The result is not important but I think the first half saw us struggle a little more than we wanted, but in the second half I think the team played better, controlled the game better. The first half also had the home supporters pushing, so we can be proud of how we worked today in continuing our progression with some different players getting rhythm.

on Emi Martinez…

His performance in the penalty shoot-out is important because maybe during the season we can have those challenges in different cup competitions, like the Europa League. We need to work and try. In the last two matches away, also against Real Madrid and here against Angers, we tried to score the penalties and also gave the goalkeepers experience of saving penalties in this situation.

on Matteo Guendouzi and how close he is to being ready for the season…

For us it’s important that many players can take minutes. He came back later than others and we also have Lucas Torreira, Mohamed Elneny and then the only player after that we’re waiting to arrive is Iwobi. He’s coming after two weeks. With every player, we can prepare and we can progress. We have the last match against Barcelona, a friendly match, and then afterwards we’re going to start.