Sead Kolasinac says Arsenal are looking forward to starting their Europa League campaign against Eintracht Frankfurt even though he’s well aware of their strength at the Waldstadion.
The Bundesliga side were unbeaten at home in last season’s competition and came within a whisker of making the final only to go out on penalties in the semi-finals against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
While they’ve since seen strikers Luka Jovic and Sebastien Haller depart for Real Madrid and West Ham respectively, Adi Hutter’s squad remains very competitive.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Kolasinac, who faced Frankfurt several times during his spell with Schalke, said: “Of course I followed Frankfurt in the Europa League last season. At home, they turned matches around that weren’t easy [to win].
“We know what’s in front of us tomorrow, especially in the stadium, but we’re looking forward to starting in the Europa League and that we start here in Frankfurt. As I’ve said, we’ll focus on our game and try to deliver our game plan on the pitch.
“I’ve played in a few matches in Frankfurt before and we all know that Frankfurt are strong at home, especially with their fans. But we want to focus on our game and try to win the match over 90 minutes.”
Frankfurt could well be licking their lips at the prospect of playing Arsenal after our pathetic second half showing at Watford on Sunday. Publicly, they are playing it cool.
“I saw they game at Watford,” explained coach Hutter. “They were lucky to have not lost after a 2-0 lead. Nevertheless, I would not tie everything to it. They try to play football from the back.
“Their philosophy is clearly recognisable and I assume that they will perform accordingly tomorrow.
“On the other hand, we need a clear plan and we have both the solutions and the resources.”
Just do not repeat that stupid short goal kick farce again!
I wonder if that’s what their manager was referring to when he said “Their philosophy is clearly recognisable”… Otherwise I’d dearly like him to explain what our recognisable philosophy is.
It worries me that we’re starting from a position of being ‘wary’. This seems to be endemic of the situation at the club at the moment. We should be going into matches with confidence in our ability to take on anyone. We should stop playing passive football, and go for the jugular.
our captain said the team is scared….now our tank is scared too,its all over now.
At least vary it a bit. Fine to play short if its safe to then play long when you have drawn the opposition up the pitch. We have pacy players to chase a long ball.
I think it’s a bit more complex than that. The point is to stretch out the opponents and play through them and open up space for faster attacks – thus it attempts to draw teams into the press. The problem we are overusing it and teams know we will just do it every time and it becomes predictable and smart teams adjust and be patient for the mistakes it bring, control where we need to pass to (Liverpool did this SO SO well), while also being ready to fall back and cover we do manage to break their lines. Versatility… Read more »
All the teams in the world already knew that we will insist on playing out from the back even though we are shit in doing it. They will take advantage on it and will put pressure high line to force a mistake. We need to be dynamic, able to change the gameplan according to situation and not being too predictable. I miss to see the way Arsenal used to play and known for.
Focusing on playing out from the back is a kind of denial. That is just a form of the basic problem, not its source. The source is players not knowing what they are supposed to do. Obviously, I don’t mean not knowing where to play a particular pass at a given moment in the match; even a team with a coherent philosophy, with talented players, with a formation suited to those players, can make horrendous decisions (eg, Norwich v Man City). But our players, in general, don’t know what they are supposed to be doing. The brilliant improvisations of Lacazette… Read more »
the first team ever to be protagonists without taking the game to the opponent,the first ever defensive team that can’t pack the bus,the first ever pressing team that cannot press,the weird world we live in as Arsenal fans. Lord(not Nicklas Bendtner of course) help us!
This is the lowest that I’ve felt about the team. Going into an EL group stage game with the opposite confident of toppling us surely has to be one of the lows of our club in recent times. I’m beginning to think Emery is our version of post-Ferguson Moyes. We have young players, we have great football infra, let’s get a coach in who has a proper philosophy. Playing out from the back isn’t a philosophy, it’s just a tactic. If it doesn’t work, then it needs to change.
Whole squad “wary” of Emery’s shit tactics……
Kola said the team will stick to the “game plan”. Just hope that there is actually one for the team to follow and stick to.
I have no doubt ozil has one of those clauses wherein we have to pay him certain amount of he plays beyond certain no of games.. can’t see any other reason for his absenteeism..
As an Arsenal fan, having to gear up for a 3rd successive year in the Europa League is incredibly disheartening. There really is no escaping the fact that it’s hugely inferior to the Champions League and right up until the Final it’s just a waste of time and energy…
Their manager knows we are rubbish. 🙁
Where is the pressing that Unai talked about after he started. Did he abandon that initial idea ? I would like to see it more even in away matches rather than another shaky, timid, submissive, uninspiring showing like we saw against Watford. In that match we quite worryingly lacked also positional awareness and organization. Youngsters in Europa league will maybe show more energetic displays to offer a positive in that competition. I´m not sure what instructions are those players getting though.