Arsenal take a two goal lead into tonight’s Europa League quarter-final second leg against Napoli, but will face an Italian side determined to give a better account of themselves.
The Gunners performance in the 2-0 win last Thursday left the Serie A side looking limp, and although they had a couple of good chances they fluffed their lines at both ends of the pitch, leaving them fed-up and fully focused for the second game.
Speaking to the official Napoli website, defender Kalidou Koulibaly said, “We’re angry about the performance in London.
“We know we messed up and we’re aware we didn’t show our true quality. We want to do so in the return leg.
“There’s still a chance we’ll go through if we play as we can do, at the height of our ability. It’s still open.
“We need to be aggressive and put pressure on Arsenal. We’ll be ready on Thursday.”
Carlo Ancelotti, Napoli boss, says that his team will be doing their utmost to turn the two goal deficit around, boosted by home advantage.
“We want to be in the game until the very end, and beyond that if need be,” he said.
“We need to play to our full potential. We cannot be too frenzied in trying to get a goal. We need to stay in the game and try to turn the result around.
“I am certain that Napoli will put in an excellent performance tomorrow and I believe we can do this.
“In the first leg we were a bit intimidated by the atmosphere, but tomorrow the atmosphere will be ours, and we’ll be able to shake off those worries we had in London.”
Just looking at our away form (eg Watford with 10 men) will give them a lot of confidence.
Hope we can step up away from home. We have the talent, we need the mentality.
We just need one goal in this game I think. I hope we are aggressive and go for it at the beginning to quiet the crowd.
True – and that “one goal” is all we’ve scored in the last two away games in the Europa League, against weaker opposition than Napoli. That one goal would be enough, of course, but don’t forget that we’ve conceded four in those games! I think we need to be cool and careful because they will be doing everything they can (and I mean everything) to destabilize Arsenal and get our players to lose their heads – so Sokratis needs to watch out in particular. If we were to get someone sent off, or concede, early on things will probably get… Read more »
did they find the guy who racially abused Kalidou Koulibaly? As an Arsenal fan that really disgusted me.
Can’t believe somebody actually down-voted this! There’s always the odd twat about I suppose…
Probably the guy that shouted the racist abuse, and a couple of his friends…
Unfortunately, DB10, there are still racists walking around in our society. It’s a learnt behaviour that they either picked up from their parents and family, or from kids at school.
Granit will calm them down
Did Ancelotti just say Napoli were intimidated by the atmosphere at the Emirates?!
Good job Gooners! I think it’s the first time I ever hear that. Feels refreshing! 🙂 Let’s keep it up!
Those Italians just can’t cope with mild opprobrium!
Our crowd’s spirit embiggens the smallest of men (torreira).
A perfectly cromulent word. Thumbs up from me Badaab.
Never trust Italians to stay the distance. Just look at WWI and WWII. They had many of the weakest troop formations in the war, and as soon as the heat was turned up on them, they quit and switched sides! But they quite brilliant in building their Roman Empire. Luckily for us, that was 1,600 years ago.
It’s easy to discombobulate them … “they don’t like it up ’em”, as a certain Corporal Jones would say;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhWlAKdlQp4
The away fans were terrible too, some of the quietest I’ve ever seen. Surprising given what Italian teams are usually like.
I’ve seen and heard them at the SPS and it will be very different there.
Maybe something was lost in translation…that made me laugh out loud!
I suspected that, it was the reason for the difference between our home and away forms. It’s not our team’s mentality but the visitors to the Emirates Fortress start trembling! Haha.
Hopefully, we can get the job done tonight.
The spud admirers are all out in the media after last night.
COYG
If we finish 4th but Chelsea win the Europa, are we phukd?
Only if heaven forbid Spurs win the Champions League and finish out of top 4 and we finish lower than third.
Worst case scenario:
Manure 3rd, us 4th, Spuds 5th, Chelski 6th but Spuds win CL and Chelski win EL
Best case scenario:
Us 3rd, Manure 4th, Spuds 5th, Chelski 6th. We win EL and Ajax win CL. Sarri signs 10 year contract, Pocho leaves Spuds.
I prefer Chelshit in 4th since they have a transfer ban and Manu have lots of money
I understand that but just want to see Spuds realise how close they came if only they hadn’t dropped points to us.
I stopped reading after “spurs win the CL” and vomited uncontrollably
Not that they don’t deserve it but I’d hate to see Liverpuddle win the league.
They’re fan base are like a bunch of second coming Nutters.
Don’t like Schitty either but can’t stand the ex-Liverpool pundits. Bunch of twits.
Whack the first one and see who wants it
Wait, is this Troy Deeny incognito?
When a Neapolitan serves you a meal, always check under the pasta to see if there’s Cojones underneath…
The key for us is to possess and control the football as much as possible, which would, I think, require as much talent in midfield as possible (i.e., 4-3-1-2 or 4-4-2) rather than emphasizing width through the wingbacks. I hope we see Xhaka, Torreira, and Ramsey dominating the midfield with Ozil playing just behind the two strikers. No more excuses this season, just victories.
Only think with Granit is he recently returned from injury.
It may be we will have to rotate through the midfield in any case to keep momentum through the match.
I am worried about how thin the squad is. Next league match is a must-win and we’ll need a strong side.
“We are angry about our performance in London. We know we messed up and did not show our true quality, we want to do so on Thursday”. Shoooo! Was he expecting to win at Emirates? Like I don’t really get it. You(Koulibaly) played against Arsenal I would like to remind you that in case you may have forgotten so you should expect nothing but a draw. Maybe that’s what you expected but the result wouldn’t have favoured Arsenal. You can play for a draw today in your home I won’t be too disappointed.
We need cool heads on the pitch (and probably off it, given that they have such fanatical fans). Players like Sokratis particularly need to keep calm because he’ll be provoked, given his “short fuse” and bookings form. Given our away form in the Europa League, it’s pretty certain we’ll concede at some time during the game and if they get an early goal things could get very tricky.
He certainly can be a liability with the amount of bookings. Engages in unnecessary Greco Roman wrestling too which could end up in penalties and sending offs.
I think that’s why Emery took it to remind him of his better attributes in ‘experience’.
Bring it on.
With Sokratis, Kola and Xhaka playing it’s been so hard for opposition players to kick us off the park like they used to. Even your man Torreira and Lacca are no pushovers.
Love how there is an aggressive player in every department.
Who’s Kola?
-sinac
We should already be through. Let’s hope we don’t regret those missed chances last week.
Fucking nightmare last night!! Those cunts have got to he semi-final of the CL. Question: is it better for them to get narrowly knocked out by Ajax in the semis or be annihilated again by Messi and co in the final?
Don’t want them getting to the final. Even the thought of that lot having a VAR handballs chance in hell of winning the CL makes me want to Barf!
Spuds squeaked through but at a high cost to their players with several of them getting injured and Kane still out. They won with a deflection off the elbow of a 34 year old who knew nothing about it. He was only on the field because they ran out of players. They play Citeh again this weekend with a very depleted side.
Tonight’s cup game is fun and all but, I would put all my efforts on finishing 3rd or 4th if I were Emery.
Hate to see Liverpool win the title, Spurs finish above us and we are out of europa.
Hopefully Liverpuddle choke (Don’t like Schitty either mind you), Spurst finish the season empty cabinet and below us and we win the Europa plus third in league.
Make it happen please. Lets do what we can and take this tie. COYG.
A ? is always fun. So, we need to secure the Europa League along side top 4. Emery would be glad to win a ? in his first season at Arsenal and don’t forget we have never won a European trophy before.
Traditionally the sp*rs way is to choke spectacularly when within sniffing distance of something important.
They’ll get to the final and implode. My guess would be an early sending off followed by a masterclass in battering ten men from Barca.
Well, if they over react, we might punish them. We need ONE away goal to make if very difficult for them. Think we should counter them by being equally aggressive high up with AUBALACA. Midfield needs plenty of ‘aggression’ on our part. Granit recently returned from injury so not sure if he will start. If not, an energetic combination of Torreira, Guendouzi and Ramsey may work. I think that midfield can sometimes go flat without the right link but with Laca, we have the player who knows how to use and distribute the ball better for the final pass. We… Read more »
In the other news, Troy Deeney lost red-card appeal