Arsenal is expecting UEFA to give an update sometime today with regards to the sort of security planned for Henrikh Mkhitaryan ahead of the Europa League final in Baku.
The club wants assurances that Mkhitaryan’s safety is guaranteed due to the political tensions between his home nation of Armenia and the hosts of the Europa League final, Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have a history of conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and under normal circumstances, Mkhitaryan would not even be granted a visa, however, the Azerbaijan authorities have confirmed that he will receive a visa without any issues.
Arsenal has been in constant contact with UEFA over the situation and wants clarity on what sort of additional security will be provided in addition to the clubs own arrangements.
They want Mkhitaryan to have the same freedom of movement as his teammates without any worries over his personal safety and it is expected that UEFA will address these concerns at some point today.
It has to be said that UEFA and the Azerbaijan FA must have been aware that this situation had a high chance of happening at least a couple of months ago. Arsenal has been among the favourites to reach the final for some time now and that no contingency planning has been put in place is absolutely shocking.
This whole debacle could have been avoided, holding the tournament in a nation so far away from countries that were likely to be fielding the finalists was a bad call to start with and to compound that with appalling treatment of the fans and then to allow one of the finalists preparation to be distracted because of the host country political history is negligent in the extreme.
Will UEFA learn from this mess?
Of course not.
It’s best to leave Mkhitaryan behind, even though his stats are the best among Arsenal CAMs
I predict Emery would ask Ozil to start anyway
I partly agree but you have to sometimes disrupt the status quo, Mhiki is sadly one of our more creative players and we should brin our strongest team.
Mhiki can hopefully use this as a driving force to bring out a better performance and lift that trophy.
Agree with the Original post that choosing Baku was not a great choice from the start.
Mkhitaryan would not be able to focus if he feels insecure and if thousands of spectators threaten him
I believe Ozil has plenty of fans in Azerbaijan and Emery would use that sentiment to get more support from the locals, since there are only 6000 seats for the English fans
Ozil creates nothing anymore, we’ll need Miki! Miki hasn’t had the best of seasons as well, but does have a lot of assists though.
Agree that Baku was a joke, and the ticket allocation for both clubs is nothing short of disgraceful!
I really don’t know why everyone is bashing Miki he has had injuries this season but his looking strong ATM and getting better and better every game and his not moaning about being on the bench half the time, what we we need is real wingers and i’m happy with fit Welback on the left wing where i think he is at his best position and we could push Belerin on the right in front of AMN that way we can spend all our transfer money on CD,s
As much as I don’t rate Micki at all, it is important that he is available that day. It is also important that security is beefed up so that he is safe. Having said that, I hope this is his last game for our club. EPL ain’t for him
Özil n Mkhi needs to be sold, they still have value.
Ziyech of Ajax would be a nice addition!
i’d love Ziyech. Ozil and Mik are finished!
If man city Are banned from CL I don’t think their place will go to us. Instead it’ll go to the next league that doesn’t have three automatic group stage places (Portugal)
Apparently if they do get a ban within the next few days it will not affect this years entrance but whenever they qualify again, presumably next year.
Declan is that official? because this issue with City being ban’ed from CL has been going on since last summer
Sorry tas I should have qualified my comment as it’s not official but this is what I read “It is unlikely any punishment for City will apply to next seasons Champions League because they could appeal, and even take their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport”. I have also read there is a possibility of them being given a transfer ban for other misdemeanours.
Source for both is the BBC.