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Arsenal will begin their Europa League adventure at home to FC Koln, as they seek to take early control of Group H. Never in a million years did Arsenal fans think they’d be playing Europa League football this season. They knew last season was bad but the fruits of that rotten season have now come to fruition. They viewed the Europa League as beneath them, now they must do their best to win it.
Arsenal may still be perceived as a big club but they have no chance in hell of winning the Europa League this season. Manchester United may have done it last season but the Gunners will not match that feat.
Here are 5 reasons why Arsenal won’t win the Europa League...
#5 They’re simply not good enough
Yes, Arsenal have world class players and top-quality players but as a team, they don’t perform. As a unit, the Gunners are a shambolic outfit that most teams in the world can expose. Whether small or big, every team knows how Arsene Wenger sets up his teams and where their main weaknesses lie.
In recent years, Arsenal have experienced many embarrassing nights in Europe, forget the high-profile thrashings to Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Arsenal have been beaten by Dinamo Zagreb and squandered a 3-goal lead at home to Anderlecht in recent seasons. The Gunners are feared by no one and seen as beatable by everyone.
Since its inception, Arsenal have played 191 games in the UEFA Champions League, they’ve lost 50 of them. On top of that, they’ve only surpassed the Round of 16 stage on six occasions out of 20 attempts. Arsenal are not a big European club, end of.
#4 The Arsenal players are not motivated
The squad’s harmony is at an all-time low morale. The fans are angry, the players are revolting and Arsenal’s longest serving manager is a shadow of his former self. The Frenchman is now scrambling around for ideas, trying new formations, trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
Too many players are being played out of position and being left at the mercy of the wolves, they’re not happy. Why else do you think Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain would take a £60,000 pay cut to join Liverpool? Why else do you think Alexis Sanchez wants to leave and why Mesut Özil’s contract talks have been on hold since February? The players are not committed to the club.
So, factoring all that in, why on earth do you think these Arsenal players would be motivated to win the Europa League? They’re more accustomed to the finer things in life like the Champions League and away nights in Barcelona and Munich, not Cologne and Belgrade. It’s hard to be motivated when you’re not competing for the title, under a manager who doesn’t seem to care about trophies, in a competition nobody values.
#3 Insufficient squad depth
Even if the Arsenal players wanted to win the Europa League, which they don’t, they simply don’t have the squad depth to do so. We saw last season how Tottenham Hotspur struggled to field a competent team on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons. It’s a fine art to be able to field a team on Thursday that can win, without compromising the fitness of your best players.
Look at Arsenal’s squad now, if you rest the star players, are the reserves good enough to win in Europe? I don’t think so. Especially when you factor in Wenger’s poor record on European nights. The likes of Theo Walcott, Chuba Akpom and Yaya Sanogo are hardly going to fire Arsenal to the Europa League title, are they?
#2 Must focus on the Premier League
Arsene Wenger has his back firmly against the wall. Never in his tenure at Arsenal has he finished outside the top 4, that streak broke last season and now the Frenchman must prove himself all over again.
It’s imperative that Arsenal produce a good showing in the Premier League this season, at a bare minimum they must break the top 4, even though fans are craving a title challenge.
In order to compete effectively with their English rivals, 100% focus must be placed on the league, meaning Wenger cannot allocate sufficient resources to Thursday nights.
#1 Better teams in the competition
Should we list all the teams in the Europa League that could win the tournament ahead of Arsenal? Yes, let’s have a go.
- Zenit Saint Petersburg: unbeaten in the Russian Premier League and managed by Roberto Mancini.
- Olympique Lyon: last year’s UEL semi-finalists and currently sitting 3rd in Ligue 1.
- AC Milan: spent £175million in the summer, need I say more?
These are three teams who are certainly better than Arsenal, and it can also be argued that teams like Villarreal and Lazio will take the competition more seriously. The fact is, in the grand scheme of things, Arsenal are not a top-quality side, they have the facilities to be, but have not played like one in over a decade.
We all expect Arsenal to progress out of the group stage and perhaps to the round of 32, but after that, they’ll meet someone of relative quality and falter like they always do.
