Arsenal defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos has insisted that he is determined to help the Gunners improve their defending.

The North London side shipped 51 Premier League goals last term - 76 in all competitions - as Arsene Wenger's team finished sixth in the league.

Sokratis, who is a new arrival at the Emirates Stadium under Unai Emery this summer, told The Mirror that the Spaniard's work on defending in training will also help the team improve at the back.

"I am here to show I am first a defender and after that comes everything else," the 30-year-old said. "Of course you have to know how to play with the ball, in the last five or six years football has changed a lot. A lot of coaches and a lot of teams now look at only how to play, not how to defend.

"But with the new coach we work also on the situations when we don't have the ball and this is very important. On the first day, the coach worked on this.

"With him, all the players work on tactics, we look a lot at videos, what was wrong, what we have to do better. I think and hope this year things at the back will be much better."

Sokratis is one of four new signings at Arsenal so far this summer.