Aaron Ramsey an important part of my Arsenal plans, insists Unai Emery

Unai Emery has been working intensively with his new players at Arsenal for two weeks and has been impressed enough with Aaron Ramsey to tell the powers that be that he wants the Welshman to be firmly in his plans.

Ramsey is into the last year of his contract, and Arsenal are keen to avoid the problems they had last season with Alexis Sánchez in the same position. The Chilean had a distracted first half of the campaign before being sold to Manchester United. Ramsey has certainly caught Emery’s eye since his appointment in May.

“I am very happy with him,” he said. “Every training is with the ambition I want, working with quality and the competitive spirit I want. I want to work with him. His future is a question for the player and club. I said to Ivan, Raul and Sven [Gazidis, Sanllehi and Mislintat, the collective dealing with contracts and transfers] he’s an important player for me.”

Arsenal have been busy in the transfer window, recruiting a goalkeeper, Bernd Leno, two experienced defenders, and two new midfielders including the Uruguayan who impressed at the World Cup, Lucas Torreira. Emery remains open minded about adding to that list if “a big opportunity” comes up.

“Normally, in my career the big clubs don’t close the door or the moment to sign a new player,” he said. “Today, we are OK. Maybe we can bring in one if there’s a very good possibility for them to help us, but the club has done a great job of signing new players and I am happy. We signed the players who we needed. At the moment, I think the squad is complete. We will only sign a player in the next month if he’s a big opportunity.”

Once Emery has met all his new players, including those back from the World Cup after a holiday, he will make his final choices on who stays and who departs to reduce the current size of the squad. He also plans to sort out the captaincy, bearing in mind the club captain Laurent Koscielny is injured.

“Koscielny is the first captain now, then we are looking for the player who the personality is the best in the dressing room to keep respect of players. I will choose the best player for that.”