Unai Emery insists Aaron Ramsey form won't suffer despite breakdown in contract talks

The player is expected to leave Arsenal in either January or next summer after both parties failed to reach an agreement over a new four-year deal

Aaron Ramsey is currently in the last year of his contract (Getty)

Unai Emery is adamant that continued doubts over Aaron Ramsey’s future will not impact on his form on the pitch.

Talks this week broke down on a new four-year deal broke down this week to leave a huge possibility that the Arsenal midfielder will leave the club either in January, if another club comes in for him, or when his current deal expires at the end of the campaign.

Yet Emery, who refused to confirm whether Ramsey would start against Watford at the Emirates today, assured supporters that the Wales international will keep up his high standards regardless of events off the field..

“The focus in on tomorrow,” said Umery on Friday. “Tomorrow I want and we want his best performance.

“Might this affect his performances? I think not. I want to have also the best preparation for him for his mentality and his quality to give us our best performance to help us to win.

“Each player, they have this individual situation with his contract and this is one thing – for me today is not the day to speak a lot.

“It is enough we are speaking about individual players like Aaron Ramsey, he is an important player and it is tomorrow helping the team with his performance.

“The football career for the players is very short. They are professionals for ten ,12 or 15 years, but not more, and they need to take the best performance and also work very hard in these years for his future and his family’s future.

Unai Emery won’t let Aaron Ramsey’s contract situation impact his form (REUTERS/David Klein ) (REUTERS/David Klein)

“Now I am sure the best for us and the best for him is to take this opportunity to do the best performance each match, to show everyone their best quality.”

Emery was very cagey on the matter of Ramsey’s future, refusing to discuss this situation in great detail, and bringing the conversation forward to the match with Watford, but the last thing Arsenal want is the distraction of a stand-off following sagas with Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil over the last couple of years.

“For me the team is the most important and the focus is the match tomorrow but we spoke every time with the team and with every player,” he said. “I think this aspect for now is also for me to be centring our focusing on matches

“We want the control for the three elements – for the club, for the player and for me. For that, my control is tomorrow. I want to give them the most stability to show us that can be the focussed on the performance only and to show us with each match.”

This fixture last season infamously saw Watford captain Troy Deeney accuse Arsenal of a lack of ‘cojones’ but Emery is sure his side are now a tough one to beat having won four league games on the spin and six in total in all competitions.

“They are very hard and physically they will demand a lot of us in the duels,” he said. “Also we can play with the ball and impose our ideas. But we need to stop the way the work well, their qualities and their strong moments.”

Sokratis Papastathopoulos is set to make a surprise, quick return to action following a dead leg against Everton last week after missing the Carabao Cup win over Brentford on Wednesday.

“Today was the last training,” said Emery. “After two games we need the time to arrive tomorrow with all the players well.”