Arsenal has the opportunity to win both the Champions League and the Premier League. You can’t blame a Gooner for being ambitious and wanting Arsenal to win both competitions. But if you could only choose one of the two competitions, which would you want them to win to cap off their incredible season?
Do you want them to win the Champions League, which they have never won? Or do you want them to end their 20-year league title drought? Right now the Gunners are in a bitter struggle with Man City and Liverpool for the EPL, while only one game away at Bayern Munich and a 2-legged semi-final could see us in the Final of Europe’s Premier competition, with all the associated prestige and the chance to become World Club Champions.
Former Arsenal player Kieran Gibbs believes Mikel Arteta would prefer to win the Premier League if he were to choose one of the two. He told ESPN: “It depends how well you’re doing in each competition. There were some seasons where we would have a great run in the Champions League, but we were doing terribly in the league, and then the other way round,” Gibbs stated about his playing days at Arsenal.
“I think it is it can be difficult, depending on who you’re playing and what the run-in looks like, but I think for me right now, Mikel’s focus is clearly going to be — I mean, I don’t know — but I’m going to say it’s going to be on the league.
“The Champions League would be special to win, obviously, but the league is something that has been a long time coming; we’ve been so close over the last couple of seasons. Seven games away, you’re thinking he’s got his eyes on the league.”
We will be fortunate if our Gunners win either the Premier League or the Champions League. Where this Arsenal team has reached, all they need to do is win a major trophy, and they could be on their way to winning silverware season after season.
That being said, we expect our Gunners to battle on all fronts until the end; ambitions are the fire to glory, and as Gooners, we are ambitious — we want the double to consider this season a success. But, if you were Arteta, would you rest some players today with Bayern Munich in mind, or use your rotation players in Germany in midweek?
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It’s too late for priorities, which may be resolved mid week anyway; just win the games, all of them.
Exactly my thoughts Jax. Sending a weakened squad to the Allianz would be curtains anyway. Fingers crossed we don’t have any serious injuries and a win against Villa today will set us up nicely for next week.
Why prioritise anything?
I can see there’s a lot of ppl to be replaced to finish rebuilding the squad, so a bunch are below standard, but Arsenal exited both domestic cups early so there should be no tiredness.
There’s 7 PL games and 1 CL game to go, no matter what and a max of 3 more CL games.
So it’s not that hard a question really is it? Why try to lose the CL game to avoid up to 3 more games?
What would you do in the PL if you were “prioritising the CL” – play the reserves in the PL games?
It’s a non-question. Take each game as it comes., put out the best players available for each match, see what happens.
Personally I don’t think arsenal will win either but that’s should not be seen as the end of the world bcos I also think at this stage of the rebuild process the team is out-performing the owner and management expectations.
It’s just some fans who havent managed their expectations very well. They forget how low the club was not that long ago.
Neutral , at first sight you appear to make out a sensible case for not prioritising one comp above another and I DO ACCEPT that the great majority on JA will agree with you.
However , I do not and for these reasons:.
I accept that we will have at most eleven matches to play if we were to reach the CL final. Compared to eight if we lose in Munich.
. But when you dig down into the detail of that key difference, as I have done and do in general, I find that the close together schedule of our squad , which in depth compares unfavourable to Citys, will cause us too much fatigue and much greater risk of key players being injured.
Unlike City to the same extent, WE are very vulnerable to such as SALIBA, GABRIEL RICE, SAKA, ODEGAARD,all of those in particular, being injured. Others too of course, but esp THOSE!
You did not mention the important short time frame by which all POSSIBLE eleven matches much be ended, but that is a KEY consideration which I have given full consideration to.
When players play too many matches too close together results are less predictably favourable
. I use the analogy of throwing a dice . One throw for just the PREM, BUT TWICE FOR BOTH COMPS. If you did throw just once but needed to avoid say, a one, two or three coming up you would have a fifty fifty chanceto do it.
But suppose you threw it twice! You would then have far less chance to avoid throwing a one ,two or three.
My opinion is that PROVIDED WE DO AVOID key player injuries AND we lose in Munich , we stll have a 40%-50% chance to win the Prem.
But if we beat BAYERN and thus have at least two more CL matches, we have only a ten/fifteen chance of the PREM. But even if wemake th CL semis,which I MUCH DOUBT, I give us still only a FIFTEEN per cent chance at VERY MOST, to win tth CL and foresee us falling betwen two stalls . What I call “chasing fools gold”.
I would far rather win a league comp in the Prem, than what is effectively (despite its false name), a cup comp in the CL.
THAT IS MY VIEW!
Your final two paragraphs I heartily endorse!
“chasing fools gold”
Careful with the cliches there jon🙄.
Premier League
while we are still in it that is
should we faulter in the PL though, just one loss may be too much, then switch to Champions League (should we still be in it)
The league title, obviously!
With rotation we can make a run at both.
No need for wholesale changes to the lineup.
Make 2 or 3 changes to starting lineup each week to give players a bit of rest.
Jesus and Trossard can rotate in attack, Partey, Jorginho, and ESR can rotate in midfield, and Kiwior, Tomiyasu, and Zinchenko can rotate in the back 4 spots.
Sure we have an amazing record at recovering from a loss towards the business end of a season.
There is no time left for stupid questions like “which one we should prioritise?”
We prioritise the next game only and play the best 11 to win that game. End of.
Champions League for now, because we could get lucky there and there are only four games left
Lady luck seemed to have smiled upon the defensive teams in the knockout stages of UCL and EL
Watch Liverpool 0-3 Atalanta, Real Madrid 3-3 Man City, PSG 2-3 Barcelona and Arsenal 2-2 Bayern Muenchen games. Some teams deliberately lost the ball possession to catch their oppositions on the break and they got good results
In EPL, we still have to play against Chelsea, Man United and Spuds. It’d be a miracle if we can win the remaining seven league games
Gai, here is where the team needs to be skilfully manage.
If you followed the champions league, you will quickly realize, Gabriel Jesús has a long history of coming alive in this competition, Martineli on the other hand could be our Trump card in Munich.
We’ll need Martinelli’s pace for counter-attack, Havertz’s height to escape from Bayern Munich’s high-press and Jesus’ tricks to get free kicks or penalty
Strongly agree, it is for that reason I would keep Martineli fresh for the game in Munich while only giving Jesús game time to wet his beak.
If the going get rough in Munich, we could play with a water tight defense, leaving Martineli and the Big German up front feeding off scraps as we play for extra time, knowing we have youths in our favor
A best case scenario Arsenal has seven games left, that should be our priority.
Should have been eleven games remaining
EPL will always be number one. It’s tougher to win, and, you must be national champions first
to really be qualified for the Champions league.
National second, third, fourth… Psss.
If we were made to only choose one and go for it. I would pick the premier league.
We are on the front foot so if we win all our 7 epl matches then we win the league.
We need a superb play and a miracle though, to be able to win –
Tottenham A
Man United A
Chelsea H
Aston Villa H
Everton H
Wolves A
Bournemouth H
In that order. And that’s the order of difficulty for me. We will see how serious they are in 2 to 3 hours time starting with Villa this evening.
After Villa we turn our attention and concentration to Munich in Germany on Wednesday.
Well, the best they can do now is take every single game one at a time and take them seriously.
I do not think the club of Arsenal’s size prioritise one competition than another (except maybe and a big maybe the League Cup).
If we win any trophy we do that deservedly and if we do lose we deserve that as well.
The team for sure go all in in all trophies.
IF we were to lose to Bayern but win the Premier League, I would take that!
Second
Try to win every game!
We have the full squad. Just play and win the games. Why prioritise?