Emery happy with reaction

– Unai Emery praised Arsenal’s character after they gave a glimpse of their potential in a thrilling 3-2 victory at Cardiff on Sunday.

Emery was rewarded for a bold selection after partnering Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, his two main forwards, together from the start for the first time in the Premier League.

Both scored as Emery’s men collected the second victory of his reign.

The Spaniard saw his side make hard work of seeing off the newly-promoted Welsh club with old defensive failings twice allowing Cardiff to equalise.

But Emery was impressed with the way Arsenal responded to each of those setbacks.

“The reaction was very good. We were calm,” Emery said.

His decision to field two forwards paid handsome dividends as first Aubameyang and then Lacazette scored excellent goals to finally kill off Cardiff.

The Bluebirds had equalised through Victor Camarasa and Danny Ward after Shkodran Mustafi headed the Gunners ahead.

After Mustafi’s powerful header from Granit Xhaka’s corner had put his visitors ahead in the Welsh capital, they failed to see the game out to half-time.

In stoppage-time a poor Xhaka pass was intercepted, Nacho Monreal failed to deal with a Joe Bennett cross and Camarasa fired home.

Then, after Aubameyang had bent home a superb shot to restore their lead after clever work from Mesut Oezil and Lacazette, the Gunners switched off again and allowed Ward a free header.

Twice in the opening eight minutes Cech made a mess of dealing with back-passes and, on the second occasion, Harry Arter fired over when he should have opened the scoring.

There was a sighting, too, of Oezil, who played a decent hand in the victory, having missed last week’s win at West Ham amid rumours of a row on the training ground with his manager.

“In the second half he played well, he worked very hard,” said Emery. –

London