The Spanish side´s bright start was rewarded with Mouctar Diakhaby´s away goal, but Lacazette quickly turned the game around with two goals in eight minutes before Aubameyang´s late intervention gave the Gunners a two-goal advantage to defend at the Mestalla on May 9.
"[I'm] hoping he kept one for the second leg".
Emery said, "Yes, a very good performance from them both".
And the Spaniard, a three-time victor of the competition with Sevilla, will take a two-goal lead back to former club Valencia for next week's second leg after Aubameyang struck late on.
The Wales worldwide has won three FA Cup crowns during his 11-year spell at Arsenal.
And Cech´s final game could well be against his former club Chelsea in next month´s final as the Blues secured a 1-1 draw away at Eintracht Frankfurt in the first leg of the other semi-final.
Arsenal had conceded nine goals in their last three Premier League games and it was easy to see why in a terrible opening.
"We have a lot of quality in this group and we can go to the final".
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And it took Valencia just 11 minutes to break through as Rodrigo headed a corner back across goal for Diakhaby to nod in from close range.
He released Aubameyang with a superb pass before arriving in the box to steer a shot past Neto after his fellow striker cleverly held up the ball before squaring it.
Seven minutes later and Arsenal were ahead, Granit Xhaka crossing for Lacazette to head in his 18th goal of the season - Neto again at fault as he could only push the ball onto the post with referee Clement Turpin confirming it had crossed the line.
Suddenly Arsenal were rampant and another Xhaka cross found Aubameyang but he bounced his volley over.
Lacazette wasted two gilt-edged chances to put the hosts in control, miscuing a header from Aubameyang's cross with the goal gaping and weakly shooting straight at Neto.
While Arsenal's well-documented defensive frailties reared their collective ugly heads once more in the opening 15 minutes (for Valencia, at least one of these heads was a familiar sight *cough* Shkodran Mustafi *cough*), Unai Emery will be largely pleased with how they responded.
Lacazette then had two glorious opportunities to complete his hat-trick as he firstly failed to connect with an inch-perfect Aubameyang cross before Neto made a brilliant save at his near post to keep the Spanish side in the tie.
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