If I’m not mistaken Arsenal made close to €40 million from reaching the Europa League semi finals last season and winning the competition would increase that prize. They also played seven home games in the competition last season and a conservative estimate for match day income from those games would probably be another €25 to €30 million. While the Champions League offers more filthy lucre the amount available from the Europa League can’t be ignored either.
Of course they have bagged some of that money already with four games behind them and the return leg to come next week, but the further you go in the competition the greater the rewards become. The importance of the extra income from European football can’t be overstated as it adds greatly to the transfer kitty. While it might not be the most glamorous competition winning the Europa League could bring in somewhere north of €75 million from all sources and that would certainly buy a very good player or two.
Anyway to the game and Arsenal’s chances against a team who had no fixture last weekend so they could rest ahead of this game while we had to play a hard fought local derby. I can’t say I know an awful lot about Rennes, but this is a very big game for them and a chance to take the scalp of the sixth richest club in the world. They’re currently slap bang in the middle of their domestic league with almost as many defeats as wins this season.
We have another huge game on Sunday against a United team who got an unbelievably lucky penalty decision to put them through to the last eight of the Champions League last night. We lost at home to them in the cup already this season and it’s hard to believe Unai Emery won’t have one eye on that game with his team selection this evening. United have a lot of injury problems building up at the moment, but they have coped with them pretty well so far.
I think the manager has to go with Pierre-Emireck Aubameyang up front with Alexandre Lacazette suspended for both legs which should see Lacazette start on Sunday. In midfield Lucas Torreira will surely start in both legs as he has a three game domestic ban to serve. We could see the return from injury of Ainsley Maitland-Niles in defence with Petr Cech playing in goal.
There could be some more rotation from Saturday too and the manager might well be tempted to play the same team against United as the one that started against Spurs. With the exception of the Shkodran Mustafi mistake for the penalty (which was offside anyway) the team were very disciplined against Spurs and I think he’ll look for more of the same against United. That will surely influence his team selection tonight with those who missed out on Saturday quite possibly starting today.
We could well see both Mesut Ozil and Sead Kolasinac come into the team and there’s even a possibility the player we signed on loan in January could get his first start. I’m still not sure why we brought Denis Suarez in, but we took one of the few players available I suppose and I remain to be convinced that it wasn’t a massive waste of time. Even with those six or seven changes we would have a fairly strong team and one which would belie our supposed lack of squad depth.
With three players on the long term injury list we could still draft in Aubameyang, Ozil, Torreira, Kolasinac, Maitland-Niles, Cech and Suarez which would only leave only four of the team that should have got more than a point against Spurs having to play. Those four will probably be Mustafi in the centre of defence with either Laurent Koscielny or Sokratis Papastathopoulos getting a much needed rest, one of Matteo Guendouzi or Granit Xhaka in midfield and one of Alex Iwobi or Henrikh Mkhitaryan in midfield/attack. It’s a strong enough team to go there and get the win or failing that to at least leave us in with a very good chance ahead of the return leg next week.
Our chances of qualifying for next season’s Champions League are still a lot easier through the Premier League, but the Europa League cannot be ignored as a back up plan as well as a chance of some actual silverware. After the United game we finish the league with eight games which are all well within our capabilities of winning and I have no doubt a good return from those games will give us a real chance of finishing in the top four. For the moment though it’s all systems go on the reserve plan against Rennes this evening.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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