Can Arsenal seriously be considered contenders for Europa League glory?

News coming through ruling Alexandre Lacazette out of our upcoming Europa League tie, I’m seriously beginning to doubt Arsenal’s chances of glory.

Tottenham all-but ended our hopes of making the Champions League through our league position, leaving us eight points short of Chelsea in fourth, while Liverpool and Spurs also hold seven and nine point advantages over us. This has left us with a mountain to climb with only 11 matches remaining.

This result hasn’t prompted Arsene Wenger to prioritise the Europa League however, at least he has refused to admit to such a thought, but the European competition looks our best bet to qualify, albeit a slim chance.

Our defence this season isn’t worthy of playing Champions League football in all honesty, and we need some serious improvements, not that our club has shown a willingness to invest properly in our back line in the previous two windows.

We were believed to have shown an interest in Jonny Evans in both of our last two windows, but failed to offer a fair amount, and we will likely have to face some serious competition for his signature come the summer, with the Northern Ireland international likely to be available for lowly £3 Million, depending on whether his side retain their Premier League status or not.

Our interest just goes to show that the people behind the scenes knew that our backline was in desperate need of upgrading, but once again they refused to pay a fair price, but as much as I could carry on all day there, I must get back on subject…

Our defence has let in 36 goals already this term, while West Bromwich Albion at the bottom of the table have only let in four more. Our goalkeeper as experienced as he is, is on a big downhill slope, and our defence is quickly joining them. This defence is in no way shape or form good enough to win the Europa League.

I think any optimism for this competition needs to be grounded, as I for one am giving up on our campaign, and some serious changes need to be brought in come the summer, with some more Sven Mislintat additions to our back-line.

Do any of you really rate our chances of winning the Europa League? Even if Lacazette was fit, would it matter? Aubameyang isn’t available, but would he have given us a fighting chance?

Pat J

Tags Arsenal lacazette

24 Comments

  1. In case of us not being eable to compete to win the Uefa L, then there is no point in us being in the Cl in the future. Arsenal needs to invest a lot. Not go all crazy but be smart and learn from spurs a lot.

    They do everything right, where our wrongs have come back to bite us rlly good

    1. they did not do everything right though….they spend alot on crap players too with bales money….

      at this stage they are doing ok…

      dont think we are far off….we need some consistency from the players

      1. Consistency is just a word Wenger uses to excuse failuare and players being not up for the job. Just what exactly can you ask from Xhaka at times or Bellerin not being eable to get a good cross in ? Talent is needed, not the consistencys and cohession and the Wenger funny mind kamastras bs of his

        Key players came all for cheap and where easy to get once. They just dont go for players, but they buy the ones they need. Arsenal needs not only to buy, but buy where we do struggle New Gk, 3 new defenders, dm and a winger maybe

        1. 6 changes to the first team…u do know thats not gonna win in reality…

          think winger and Dm would be high priority

          that would be Mislintat job to find us some

  2. With almost no forward line to speak of, a shaky, undercoached defence and the continuous selection of Xhaka and Iwobi our Europa League will end as soon as we meet an Atletico Madrid or Napoli and it could be another 5-1 hammering. The old deluded man has to go.

  3. Yep. Agree with above
    We need to change a lot
    Spurs have built a solid squad
    At the moment they are better than us in most positions and have a complete team
    Their central midfield (defensive midfielder and box2box) is much better and central defense too.

    Big changes need to be made
    Starting with the manager
    Wenger out!
    Let go of average to below avg players
    Get central midfield sorted
    Get defense sorted.

    1. dembele makes a big diff for them and they have the height…

      kane is not way ahead of Aubameyang…

      we still beat them 2 nil at Emirates…

      our players juz need to stay consistent

      maybe a few hair dryer sessions

      1. kanes 4 years younger than aubameyang, and hes pretty far ahead of him, buts in midfield and defence theyre miles ahead

      2. Yes we beat them, now its up to you to make a dvd out of this game and watch it everytime they end up being top of us in the table. Like comon man, have we become the old spurs now or what? ; /

          1. Swansea beat Liverpool and arsenal in quick succession if only their players were that consistent across the season they would win the league … It’s not an argument for how to improve just a meaningless projection … The fact that wenger junkies resort to this level of reasoning to defen the indefensible just confirms how frazzled their brains have become from shooing up on 4th place ecstasy for so long … Stock up on chicken soup

    2. I hope we keep wenger give the man a long term contract you must want some unloyal cheapskate whos been fired at 5 clubs and successful at 1 or 2 for a few years when the club spent big cause they got a new manager and after a couple years got fired beacause those spendy players got old and that manager did nothing we have the most loyal consistent winning manager in europe and if the linesman didnt make incorrect call we woould of been 1-0 up and mkhitaryan played poor balls in the rain which we always play bad in amd are you suffering short term memory loss we beat tottenham 2-0 at home so we still won the derby on aggregate this season again thanks to mr.wenger i mean where to people come out woth these low iq thoughts and mostly you have to fire three new managers before you get a couple good seasons then start the circus again people should be embarrassed wenger to stay

  4. nope. And its not because I dont believe in players, I dont believe in Wenger. It’s just too easy to imagine Arsenal going out, and not even to a side like Napoli or Atleti. Watching Spurs do well in Europe stinks. They might achieve more in one season than Arsenal did wasting sooo many seasons in that competition. We aren’t UCL quality and wont be until the necessary changes are made.

    1. When they come up against BM Manc PSG Barca, that’ll be the test. We used to pray that we’d get Juventus.

  5. Spurs are better than us in every position, mentality and physically too. And yes kane is another planet to aubermang. We are always looking for excuses- the ref, injuries, we didn’t want it BS, the fact we won the league 15 years ago and use that everytime spurs beat us… it’s all just so embarrassing be an arsenal fan.

  6. be honest 2-0 down to juventus in turin – what happens- arsenal -capitulate
    3 4 5 any number
    we did it against far weaker than juve
    there squad against ours – dembele is big up on what we have but everywhere else?
    i for one do not believe we belong in champions league-

    beat napoli and athletico over two legs – then come back to me about it
    until then we will sit and take these 10-2 jokes

    1. totally agree Muff. Can’t see us toughing out two legged wins against any decent european competition. Cant see us doing bugger all for the rest of this season to be honest. That loss to spurs was totally spineless. The exact opposite to what Spurs just showed against Juventus. Pains me to say but I think Spuds have the belief and might actually win something this year. Why the …… can’t Arsenal show that kind of determination…..so depressing.

  7. I honestly don’t see us winning it even with Lacazette we aren’t set up to win European competitions, we couldn’t win it 18 years ago with our famous backline doubt we can win it with that sorry excuse of a backline we have now! Atletico, Zenit, Milan Napoli, Lazio even Dortmund will be too strong for Arsenal maybe not at the Emirates but with us being pee poor away from home it’s unlikely we can be successful. Let’s remember we lost to Koln bottom of the German league and yes we weren’t full strength but with Wenger favouring top 4 over Europa league we may see the young guns again in the latter rounds if we get past the Swedish bricklayers. I’m betting we don’t get a shot on target until the 71st minute on Thursday ?

    1. Overrated movie, JW, don’t know how people can watch movies for action scene’s alone. I get to a point in movies that I fast-forward an action scene because I know how it’s gonna turn out. Some are maybe feeling the same way about Arsenal right now.

  8. The rule not allowing players from the competition that you sign, to play in it is outdated, and a huge handicap. In the past I understood this rule only because a team like Real Barca Manu could use it to their advantage, by making a likely rival more weak. But that ain’t gonna happen anymore as all players are paid very handsomely and clubs can make a firmer stance against the big clubs, at least til end of season if that’s what they want. Also that rule was in place since the days when you could sign players at any point in the season. It’s outdated and stupid. If you spend allot of money on bringing in a player, and it’s in the window which they chose to have, you should have every right to play that player. Even if you don’t spend allot, there is a reason you bring in players, esp in a mid-season window.

  9. It shows how far we have fallen over recent seasons.From Champions League certain qualifiers to making up the numbers in the Europa League until the bigger Texas turn up.
    Give Wenger another couple of years and we can look forward to the Championship

  10. A very realistic assessment of the Arsenal weaknesses which will continue to plague us with AW at the helm.After we are knocked out of the Europa League will he then give our young centre backs and AMN an extended run in the team? That’s what should happen but as we know AW is too “intelligent” to think logically and you can bet he will continue to play the sub-standard defenders and Xhaka who got us where we are this season.

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