Santi Cazorla has revealed he held a ‘secret’ summer phone call with Unai Emery to talk about Arsenal and what the club need to improve.

Speaking in Saturday’s Daily Mail, Cazorla gave his thoughts on the new head coach at his former club.

“Unai Emery is a great coach,” the midfielder said. “He needs a period of adaptation, but I think he can give them a leap in quality.”

Over the summer, Arsenal had to make the tough choice to let Cazorla go, which he says he understands. Nonetheless, it seems he was more than willing to help the new boss out, with some tips on what to expect at the club, and what areas he needs to get them to work on.

“In the summer he called to find out about the team, and I told him the things that he had to change and the things he had to reinforce,” Cazorla said, before refusing to give away any further details of those proposed changes.

“No, that’s a secret. I said it was an incredible club that had everything it needed to win, but that there were things that had to change. I said it would be hard to change some things because Arsene was there for 23 years and you can’t change 23 years overnight.”

It probably wouldn’t be too hard to guess what Cazorla said Emery needed to change. Pretty much everyone around the club knew Arsenal were having trouble in defence, in defensive midfield, and in goal. No surprise, that’s exactly where the new boss made his summer purchases.

We’ll have to wait and see if it’s enough to get the team back on track. As Cazorla says, Emery will have to go through an adaptation period, and we’re seeing that on the pitch already.

Despite defeats to Chelsea and Manchester City, you could see some progress in the performances. The wins against West Ham United and Cardiff City were far from perfect, but again there were a lot of positives to go with the areas to work on. Hopefully Emery will get it right in the end.