Friday 10 May 2019

Arsenal Show Some Backbone As Baku Beckons

Arsenal went to Valencia last night for the second leg of their Europa League semi final knowing nothing short of qualifying for the final would do in their quest for Champions League football for next season. After winning the first leg 3-1 at home last week they had a lead to protect, but their recent Premier League form gave us real cause for concern. I was far from confident of making the final and the early goal to Valencia looked like it might be just what they needed to overcome the deficit.

I hadn’t factored in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang having his best game in his 16 months at the club though and he equalised soon afterwards. Half time came and went with the tie still in the balance before Alexandre Lacazette gave us the lead on the night and left Valencia with a huge hill to climb. They did manage to equalise, but enter Aubameyang again with two more cracking goals to give us a 4-2 win on the night and a 7-3 win on aggregate.

In the other semi final Chelsea scraped through against Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties to set up another all English final in Baku on May 29th. Playing the final in Baku has it’s problems for Arsenal as UEFA can’t currently guarantee the safety of Henrikh Mkhitaryan due to the ongoing political situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It’s comical that UEFA have allowed the final to be played in a country with some much hatred for others and it’s not as if they couldn’t have seen it coming.

Mkhitaryan didn’t travel when Arsenal played away to Quarbag earlier this season for the very same reason. Officially Arsenal chose not to pick him in the squad for that game, but ultimately it came down to his nationality. UEFA have had time to consider a solution since then in the knowledge that Arsenal have been second favourites to win the trophy all along. 

Personally I think the game should be moved to a country where you don’t need to get assurances of player safety for a European Final because the locals can’t be trusted. I have no doubt the game will go ahead in Baku though and Arsenal will have to do without a very good player which will surely be an advantage to Chelsea. With so many travel arrangements already made I doubt if the game could be moved, but UEFA have a lot to answer for.

Back to all things bright and beautiful though and the attitude and commitment shown by the players last night was magnificent. I wondered beforehand if they had being saving their best performances for the Europa League and I don’t think we need to wonder any more. Without a doubt we would be in with a much better chance of finishing in the top four if the players had performed in the league in any way similar to any or all of their last five Europa League games.

If we win the final and qualify for next season’s Champions League all will be sweetness and nice, but failure to do so will lead to some very serious questions being asked. Option one is obviously my preferred option and we can worry about the state of our squad and style of play when we have a trophy in the cabinet. Hopefully that will be the case and we will have the whole summer to start work on the rebuild that is so badly needed, but at least it will be from a position of strength. It has to be a lot easier to attract the players we will be chasing if we have that trophy and the prospect of Champions League football next season too.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

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