Sokratis embraces role as traditional defender at Arsenal: 'I hope the fans love and understand my style'

Sokratis Papastathopoulos is the man who once had to be pulled away from Marko Arnautovic in a training ground fight in front of the television cameras at Werder Bremen and celebrated a tackle on Willian at the Emirates this season as if he just buried a free-kick from 30 yards.

The Greece international defender is a favourite at Arsenal and the Europa League final on Wednesday is a chance at the first major trophy in some time. At the age of 30 he has a Serie A winners medal with AC Milan from 2011, although he played a relatively minor role. He won the 2007-2008 Greek title at AEK Athens only for it later to be awarded to Olympiacos for reasons that Sokratis can only shrug about now.

He has embraced his role as a traditional defender, popular with English crowds and recalls fondly his team’s 2-0 win over Chelsea in January. “I remember it was a good game from us,” he says this week at the club’s training ground.

“We were much better than them. Chelsea has a good team - very good players - and we respect them. We are not afraid. It's one game. One final. We are happy to be there. We like to win. We want to play next year in the Champions League.

“My work is to defend and to do everything to help the team. If this means sometimes I have to take a yellow card or do something that is not so good for me but not good for the team, then I will do it. I hope that the fans love and understand it [his style]. That football is not only a lot of good things that they like to see - technical things, strategy. That you have to do a lot of different things to win.”

That said, Arsenal’s defensive problems were clear at the end of the season. Fourteen goals shipped in their last seven games and no clean sheets since the win in Naples in the semi-final. “We didn’t do very well. We conceded a lot of goals. The last four or five games were not very good. We lost this opportunity to go in the top four. Of course we look at every criticism and try to improve. I think we have to improve offence and defence, but especially not just the four defenders in football we just don’t defend with four.”

As for the fight with Arnautovic, still available on YouTube, Sokratis says it is forgotten. “It’s finished and we are friends. You know a lot of things happen in training when the team is not doing well or sometimes when you are having a bad day it can happen. But Marko is a good player. He is a friend of mine.”