Many Arsenal fans are getting worried about the fixture congestion in this final quarter of the Premier League season, but our one free weekend so far (just gone) happily coincided with our round of 32 Europa League tie double-header against Ostersund.
Now, because Leicester have made it into the next round of the FA Cup after beating Sheffield United this weekend, they have now qualified for the Sixth Round and are set to face Chelsea on the 17th March, when they should be playing Arsenal at home.
By our lucky chance, that weekend would have been our game in between the double header for the next round of the Europa League as well, so Arsenal will be free to concentrate on whoever we draw after disposing of Ostersund again this Thursday. Wenger will then be free to pick his strongest team available for the first leg without worrying about fatigue affecting the intervening League match. After the second leg the League closes down while we have yet another meaningless international fixture or two, so that won’t interfere with us either.
If we do progress to the quarter-finals of the Europa League after that then it may become a bit more of a problem, as they are set to be played on the 5th and 12th of April, and we will then be back to playing every three or four days again, with our fixtures as follows….
Sun 01/04/18 Arsenal v Stoke City
Thurs 05/04/18 EUROPA LEAGUE Q-F
Sat 07/04/18 Arsenal v Southampton
Thurs 12/04/18 EUROPA LEAGUE Q-F
Sat 14/04/18 Newcastle v Arsenal
Two easy-ish home games and an away match at Newcastle doesn’t seem too bad, but to be honest we should know by then whether we still have any chance at all of making it into the Top Four, and we can then decide what we should be really prioritising in the final stages of our season….
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