Sokratis Papastathopoulous has promised to bring back some old-school, hard-as-nails defending to Arsenal.
Which will be music to the ears of the Gunners fans who have grown frustrated at their side’s flakiness at the back in recent years.
Last season, they shipped 51 goals — 24 more than Premier League champions Manchester City, 12 more than seventh-placed Burnley and four more even than Newcastle, who finished 12th.
In all competitions they conceded a whopping 76 times.
Sokratis knows that has to change if his new side are to stand any chance of a top-four finish this season.
And the former Borussia Dortmund star, who cost £17.6million, hopes the Spartan spirit he’ll bring will help them shore things up.
The 30-year-old, who is also known as Papa to his team-mates, said: “I am here to show I am first a defender and after that comes everything else.
“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.
“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 cut his teeth at AEK Athens before moving to Genoa then AC Milan.
Paolo Maldini was the defender he most looked up to in his early days in Italy, although he’d left the San Siro by the time Sokratis arrived.
Still, Alessandro Nesta and Thiago Silva were there to teach him well.
Sokratis added: “My first step was in Italy and Maldini was a great player.
“I played with Nesta, that was one big school for me.
“Also with Thiago Silva, great players to learn from — they were defenders who were defenders first.
“I learned a lot and now I am ready to give what I know.”
Arsenal were reluctant to sign or hand new long-term deals to players over 30 during Arsene Wenger’s time at the club but Sokratis insists he is in his prime.