Granit Xhaka says that qualification for next season’s Champions League by virtue of finishing in the top four is Arsenal’s priority, ahead of the Europa League and a potential trophy at the end of the season.
The Swiss international was speaking after last night’s 1-0 win over Watford which put us above Man Utd and Chelsea into fourth place, and he insists that what happens in the Premier League comes first.
In fairness to him, it’s probably a way of urging focus and not becoming distracted by the possibility of a European final, and with three of our five remaining games away from home it’s crucial we treat every game with the utmost importance.
Watford 0-1 Arsenal player ratings
“We want to stay in the top four,” he said. “We want to be back in the Champions League.
“For me, the Premier League is first and after if you can go to the final and take the Europa League, of course, it is nice as well, but for us it is the Premier League first.
“We are now in fourth place, two points over United, one game less than Chelsea and one point behind Tottenham – and they play against Manchester City this weekend.
“This can be a big weekend for us.”
Arsenal will take on Crystal Palace at home on Sunday, but first up a trip to Italy to face a team second in Serie A. We have a two goal lead from the first leg, and scoring once would mean the Italians have to score four, so we’re in a strong position, but our form on the road has been such that you can’t take anything for granted with this team.
Winning the Europa league would give us massive confidence going into next season – should be priority number 1!
Personally, I’d take top four over Europa League, because I think it’s a better indicator of progress. But I get the other argument of a trophy being a trophy, and that being the goal.
But for me the prospect of an end-of-season collapse and finishing, say, 6th and going to win the Europa league would be way worse for our confidence going in to next season, than getting knocked out vs Napoli, but putting together a solid end of season run to finish in fourth (or even third).
This is bullshit, we could finish top 4 & still not even qualify for CL therefore winning Europa has to take priority.
4 games to win guaranteed CL spot
or
5 games to come 4th & pray Chelsea or Man Utd don’t win their competition.
I know what I would prioritize.
Wouldn’t a top 4 finish still guarantee a CL place with place 7 going to a Europa league place in that scenario ?
4th place would take us to ucl, even if Chelsea won the UEL. The only way 4th wouldn’t give us a Champions league place, is if chelsea won the uel and Manu won the ucl. Which won’t happen. Manu will be out tonight at Nou Camp.
The only we could finish 4th and not get CL football would be if Chelsea and one of Spurs and United both finished outside the top 4 and both won their European cups. And that is pretty unlikely to say the least. Actually I’m not sure what happens to that Europa League CL spot if the winner has already qualified for the CL through their league position. Does it go to the runner-up?
Well, we’re a “big” club, or we’re supposed to be, so why is it one or the other? I remember in the distant past when we won two domestic “doubles”. It wasn’t “either/or” then. The problem is that we’ve had several years of dumbing down expectations – when just qualifying for a competition was “better than winning a trophy” etc. Whichever route is preferable, neither is by any means certain yet. For example, if we play against Napoli anything like we did against Everton or Watford, we’ll be in trouble. In the EPL at least we still have a few… Read more »
We’ve had injuries and we lack squad depth in some areas that’s why it may come down to one or the other. I didn’t care about the Carabao cup this season and to an extent I took the FA cup defeat on the chin. Unai knows that he has to get CL qualification and if he can get it through the League then all well and good, but being the Master of the Europa I’m sure in his heart of hearts he would love to win that too. The Everton match and parts of the Watford match show that it’s… Read more »
The problem is that if they all come out saying Europa League is priority 1 and then we lose at Napoli, the fallout could screw their minds up in the PL as well.
Which is why prioritising one over the other isn’t a good idea. We should be going after both objectives, top four and Europa League. Frankly, I don’t think we’ll get both but let’s give it a go. The big weakness is the lack of quality across the squad but we are where we are and can’t change that until the Summer.
Yep. It’s often forgotten that when players and coaches speak publicly there’s always another layer or two of meaning to consider. A lot of public communication is impression management and symbolism, especially in high-stakes ($) enterprises like top football.
How about both?
Respectfully, I disagree. The chance to win a European trophy doesn’t come around very often, and especially for a side with our lack of European prestige (compared to United, Liverpool, even Chelsea now) we should take the chance with all we have. If we get past Napoli and win on Sunday I make us favourites to do both, so hopefully we don’t have to choose!
Hopefully, you’re right but “favourites” to win the Europa League with (currently) several other good teams – in European competition terms – still around? Let’s not count our European chickens too soon, some Gooners began to do that in the competition last season and we know how that ended.
I quite agree with Granit. We can’t prioritise the Europa league for now as finishing second doesn’t give you champions league….3rd and 4th in the league would though.
Not if Tottenham, United or Chelsea won their European trophy & finish outside top 4
Winning a cup competition is always more of a difficult mental and physical challenge than a league finish. You’re just determined to want the team to be trophy hungry
Can’t we do the the one where we double qualify and it ends up with the spunts being 1 point short of qualifying for anything at all?
Of course they will be desperate to win Europa, who wouldn’t want to do the best possible in any competition? (Apart from maybe the League cup where it can become a distraction and won’t necessarily be prioritised). I am confident we can finish third and win the Europa cup or whatever it’s called now. Xhaka is just urging focus and quelling any complacency for the league finale I reckon.
Here’s a clue as to what it’s called: it’s in the title of this article. (Also twice more in the article itself and in a few comments below.)
Meow.. sorry man how bloody ignorant of me.
Not so much ignorant as… pretentious.
No, he wasn’t being pretentious. You can’t be pretentious on behalf of somebody else.
Pretentious… moi?
What if we finish 4th and chelsea win the EL? will they take our place ? It is confusing.
They would take our place therefore winning EL should be as big as incentive as 4th.
Basically win every game this season & we’ll be ok
I believe they would only take our place IF either of Man U or sp*rs also finished outside of the top 4 team but won the CL. My understanding is that the max. number of teams from any league is 5 (and less for leagues where fewer than 4 teams normally qualify for CL): Top 4 plus CL/EL winner if outside the top 4. So the only way 4th place is bumped from the CL is if both european cup winners come from that league and both of them are outside the top 4…in which case, top 3 plus the… Read more »
You are correct, I didn’t realize they had opened it up to allow 5 teams to compete. But win every game at it does become a moot point.
Winning Europa League should be priority.
There is a possibility that even finishing 3rd would not get automatic CL qualification if 2 of the 3 win the European trophies & both finish outside top 4.
Seems upto 5 teams can qualify so that 3rd place is guaranteed.
They play like a scared bunch away from home. This needs to change.
The stick Wenger used to get for the whole ‘fourth place is like a trophy’ thing…
Was a different time
We had better players back then. We should have at least won the league back then with the talent we had.
Been saying this for a while.
Whilst Europa also offers an opportunity to CL, top four (PL) is the competition that is more ‘controlled’.
We only have ourselves to blame if we drop the ball like at Everton.
We’ve also lost plenty of winnable games at BHA, Soton and West Ham this season.
I’m not sure why we have this issue away from home but we need to rectify it quickly. Stll some very difficult games to come with Wolves and Leicester.
Granit. Not sure if he will start in Italy on account he just came back in from injury. Played well for me against Watford considering recent return. A couple of times he was on the wrong side of a tackle or two but generally aware enough to be there and critically this season much better off not lunging into things and conceding penalties or free kicks. Plus going forward, he splays the ball across from deep to our forwards which makes our often ponderous build up play less ponderous. We were full of sterile possession yesterday. We need to find… Read more »
When will you be publishing this book
Only a small team Will suffer from confidence to truly go for all possible trophies. Emery is crystal clear, we go for both. Why X man feels he has to put a different Perspective out there is up to him to answer, possibly mindgaming on a stratospheric lvl.
No “By the Numbers” ? Mustafi – 11 Duels won – Led the team. 7 Aerial duels won – Led the team 5 Clearances – Led the team. 4 Interceptions – Led the team. …yet some people on AFTV would mention Koscielny as ‘Outstanding’ and choose not conveniently ignore Mustafi’s ‘stats’…then again it is AFTV I highlight this not to make any claim that he is the best defender (he isn’t) but to expose the enormous bias which continuously get perpetuated with regard the German (much like with Flamini some years back) that gets in the way of more rational… Read more »
Flamini, prior to leaving was a monster. And perfect combo in midfield with Fabregas.
Iwobi had a decent performance receiving a whopping 52 passes, and creating chances from out wide time and again. We have been lob sided for a while now with most productivity coming from left since arguably Alexis was at the club. Right side is bereft of similar effort without Bellerin or having to commit a wingback in AMN. We have done nothing to rectify this issue. Mslintat (who isn’t even the person who transformed Dortmund, it was Zorc), brought low hanging fruit with Mhkitaryan and held us hostage to Raiolla and United when we could have sold Alexis to City… Read more »
…and that’s even if we bring Nelson back into the fold.
Good grief Santi – leave some space for others on posts!
We have a far better chance of finishing top 4 than winning the Europa. Just look at the bookies’ odds – they say we’re nearly three times more likely to finish top 4, even taking into account the fact that we’ve taken control of the tie against Napoli. People always seem to underestimate how hard it is to win a knockout cup. To state the obvious there’s only one winner! Obviously we should go for both – we can’t afford to put all our eggs in one basket. But I’m always confused by people saying Europa is our best chance… Read more »
I’d probably enjoy a Europa league trophy more than a top 4 finish.
But if you made it top 4, with Spurs below us in fifth, that would keep me smiling all summer!
I’d love it if they played Europa in their fancy new stadium.
Both. Finishing Top 4 and winning the Europa League should be priority. We should knock out Napoli and after that not winning the Europa League would be massive disappointment for me. Considering the fact that we would become favourites after beating Napoli. Our recent games against Chelsea shows that we have the edge over them. If we can’t win the Europa League if we knock out Napoli, we don’t deserve to be in the Champions League. And to add to that let’s finish above the scum if we can. That will send of message to the rest of the top… Read more »