Unai Emery contract length revealed

Arsenal’s new manager Unai Emery toppled a three-man shortlist before being offered the job.

Ivan Gazidis has revealed the Spaniard, who left Paris Saint Germain just a matter of days ago, put pen to paper on a three-year contract.

The 46-year-old was unveiled at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday afternoon, but won’t have his squad together until after this summer’s World Cup.

It had been well documented that Mikel Arteta was a strong candidate for the job, but the Evening Standard report that Julian Nagelsmann was also a front runner.

Yet following a meeting with Stan Kroenke and his son Josh on Monday night, the Spaniard was confirmed less than 48 hours later.

Arsene Wenger said his final goodbyes on Monday

Arsenal chief executive Gazidis said: “We went through a pretty wide-ranging discussion, challenging each other on as much as we could on preconceptions and assumptions we might have had going into the process.

“By the way, all the way going through the process, Raul and I and Sven spoke to each other as little as possible. Because we didn’t want to pollute each other’s viewpoints from the discussions we had had.

“We wanted to come to the discussion fresh when we had been through all eight of the finalist candidates. We narrowed it down to three. We spent an entire day discussing among those three.

“At the end of the day, three of us all wrote on a piece of paper, 1, 2, 3, and put them into the middle of the table. And the choices were all 1, 2, 3 the same. And Unai was at the top of all of our lists.”

Gazidis added by confirming the length of Emery’s contract.

“It’s a three-year contract,” he said. “I think we need to understand that success isn’t instant. So, this is going to be a process.