All Arsenal fans just looked at Rennes as being a mid-table Ligue 1 club, but as I told you before the first leg, they are a formidable side since Julien Stéphan took over in early December. Not only have they not lost ANY home game, in any competition, since then (but everyone was surprised that Arsenal lost?)
So onto their away form, they have lost three away games since December (that’s over 3 months) and the only one that was more than 2 goals was a 4-1 defeat at PSG. Let me make it clear, they are NOT going to be easy to beat tomorrow!
In the last round we also lost away to BATE and had to make a come-back, and that was a great night, but I assure you coming back from 3-1 against Rennes is going to be a little harder..
But our new midfielder Lucas Torreira thinks that it will be a little bit easier if we don’t get anyone sent off! “Obviously we had the situation in the last round where we had to turn the tie around. I think in terms of the game last week [in Rennes] it was a very different game until the red card to Sokratis.” Lucas told Arsenal.com. “I think we were in control of the match and we’d obviously taken an early lead, but the red card did change things and Rennes were able to take advantage of things. With that being said, we do have confidence that we’re going to give a very big performance and go through to the next round.”
We should be confident after beating a massive team like Man United (who made mincemeat of PSG) but please don’t think it is going to be an easy ride all night okay?
Darren N