Last night’s Man United win over Barcelona means that Arsenal can only get one of 7 teans in the draw for the Europa League as we cannot face another Premier League side at this stage.
As the Gunners have already been knocked out of the FA Cup and the League Cup, it means that this is the only trophy left to us after the Premier League title.
I think Arteta has not been bothered about the Carabao or the FA Cup, so he can concentrate on these two, and considering Arsenal have never won it it would be a great extra feather in his cap.
So, our possible opponents were:
- Juventus
- Sporting Lisbon
- Shakhtar Donetsk
- Union Berlin
- Bayer Leverkusen
- Sevilla
- Roma
We would obviously prefer one of the weaker sides so Arteta can make a few changes so as to keep our strongest players for the League games, although most of our opponents are sure to put up a good fight anyway.
And now we have found out our opponents are to be SPORTING LISBON
FULL EUROPA LEAGUE DRAW
WATCH – Arteta discusses the Leicester challenge, injuries, contracts, new arrivals, and talks a lot about Bukayo Saka being targeted by opposing teams.
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Ours looks to be the top draw Should be a decent match if neutrally speaking
What I am most concerned about is potential injuries we can pick from this matchup,Benfica aside that plays fluid technical football,the adjoining portuguese footballing club giants thus Porto and Sporting play rough and have a knack of using crude(overpowering relying on strength of their players) and tough approach in outdoing their opponents, Arsenal players need not to go in hard on the 50-50 loose balls, shouldn’t put in tackles where not necessary and a player shouldn’t be holding the ball for too long……I fear the most for Saka…I think he should sit this one,,this is a game for Tierney, Tomiyasu and Kiwior…I will go in for the line-up
Turner
Tomiyasu Saliba Kiwior Tierney
Jorginho Xhaka
Martineli Zinchenko Trossard
Nketiah
I don’t think Zinchenko will play there at all. Probably ESR or Viera.
It will be wise to not include a just recovered ESR in our lineup at Portugal,they are a physical side..
I’m concerned about the tight schedule, but a title contender should be able to manage it
We should play players required to WIN. Not throw the match away by filling the squad with weakest players.
We can be so arrogant sometimes. It would be amazing to win the Trophy and win a double. Set your sights higher and don’t be 🏆 snobs
We have enough strength n depth to manage two competitions. We should be thinking about the double. ESR is back n jesus will be soon as well. We can easily put two very strong competitive teams on pitch.
A quick look at the average odds of the online bookies has this first leg at: Sporting 11/4, Arsenal 59/50 & Draw 5/2, and Arsenal 7/2 second favourites (behind United 5/2) to win the competition.
Looks about right to me.
Nketiah.
Trossard. Fabio. Saka.
Xhaka. Jorginho.
Tierney. Kiwior. Saliba. Tomiyasu.
Turner.
If you want to be serious and win any trophy this season, this is not the time to rotate any any player. Play your full squad if you don’t want to get knocked out because all the remaining teams are very strong and can cancel any other team out without hesitation.
I recommend that we put our second strongest squad in this match and concentrate on winning the league. Kiwior should make his debut
Decent draw, don’t have to travel far. I’ll take that!
👍 Jen, but will still need to select a strong side.
As much as Id like us to give this tournament a decent shot, I think it would be foolhardy to risk the likes of Saka and Odegaard in any of the next few games as our squad is stretched and we have bigger fish to fry. If the likes of Trossard, ESR and Viera cant get the job done then they will only have themselves to blame for not being up for it.
This is an interesting draw , think our team is built to handle this robust outfit
A mature performance against sporting Lisbon could do the trick, position football, just keep the ball away from them.
Arteta’s of the very strong (and recent) opinion that a footballer should be capable of 70 games per season, so I don’t expect too much squad rotation for this match.