Although Arsenal fans are 99% certain that the Gunners cannot qualify for the Champions League by finishing in the Top Four of the Premier League and our only remaining hope is to win the Europa League and sneak in the back door, like Man United did next season, it would appear that the Boss thinks his team need to win against some ‘big teams’ before we can consider winning the minor European trophy.
Of course the next ‘big team’ we play is Man City again on Thursday, and if we lose that then we are left ten points behind Tottenham in Fourth Place, and even 8 points behind Chelsea in Fifth, but Wenger insists that we can’t give up yet, despite only ten games left to make up the deficit on both of them.
“We have to prioritise the next game first before we talk about the Europa League,” he said on Arsenal.com when asked where our priorities lie now for the season ahead. “We will of course take the Europa League very seriously but we have as well to win big games because if you want to go far in the Europa league, you have to win big games as well.
“If you look at the opponents who are in the Europa League, there are big teams in there.”
Of course we play AC Milan next month in the next round of the Europa, and there are still teams like Dortmund, Atletico Madrid and others still to come if we can beat the Italians, so it is no surprise that Wenger is not feeling very confident.
But he also doesn’t seem very confident about beating City in the League match on Thursday either. “When you lose a game like that everything is questioned – the players, the team, the personalties,” he said. “It is now [like that] of course every time that you don’t win a game.
“But we played against a good side, you cannot say that we played against an average side. They dominate the Premier League and they have good players. It is difficult to come back [when you are behind against them].”
Well, I guess all we can hope for is that Man City don’t get the first goal again and destroy our confidence even further….
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